Embedded Files
September 2, 2025
We are off to a great start! We have a new Reading Corner and my wonderful husband and oldest daughter came in over Labor Day weekend to help me finish setting things up. I'm so grateful for their help!
June 18, 2025
It's the last day of school (for teachers, the kids finished yesterday). The library is completely packed up now. This picture is from a few days ago when I was still packing. For the second year in a row, all the books have to be packed up. Last year, we got new carpet and paint. This year, new shelves. Exciting stuff! Signing off now until the fall. Hope you all have a great summer!
June 3, 2025
The voting is done and the results are in!
Kindergarten finalists - (L to R)
Harper, Jaxson, Peyton (winner), Morgan, and Olive (not pictured)
1st grade finalists - (L to R)
Olivia, Kage, Ryker, (winner) Esmae, and Maggie (not pictured)
2nd grade finalists - (L to R)
Ava, Alyce, Carson, Jakob (Winner), and Aryana (not pictured)
3rd grade finalists - (L to R)
Lucas, Riley, Maddy, Senia (winner), and Emmy
4th grade finalists (L to R)
Lexi, Mikelle, Rynn (winner), Viana, Elaina
5th grade finalists (L to R)
Kenzie, Aidan, Tyler, Colin (winner), and Mathius
And the winners are....
And the winners are....
(L to R) Colin M., Senia M., Jakob O., Ryker B., Peyton T., and *Rynn M.
*(Rynn is pictured separately because her class had a field trip and left school before the others even arrived that day.)
May 29, 2025
We are approaching the end of the year with some fun memes to remind you to bring your books back and voting for the best bookmark designs!
May 20, 2025
Last week, learners from RMS and JGS in 1st and 2nd grade went on a field trip to Conant Middle High School to see author Jarrett Krosoczka speak about his journey to publish books. He told us all about his rejections (SO MANY REJECTIONS) and his successes, he drew for us live, and he answered so many questions from the audience. It was so much fun! Many thanks to Mrs. McLaughlin, the librarian at CMHS, for inviting us to come on this adventure!
April 23, 2025
The winners of our Estimation Jar for School Library Month are Mrs. Barney (she guessed 127 chocolate eggs and there were 128), Harrison in 2Di came the closest on the student estimation jar. There were 852 jelly beans and he guessed 851. Both Mrs. Barney and Harrison won the jars of candy and a $15 gift certificate to our BOGO book fair! The second closest guess for students was Dexter from 5H. He guessed 827 and won a $10 gift certificate to the book fair. The third closest guess in the whole school was Jillian in 1K. She guessed 810 and won a $5 gift certificate to the book fair. We have some great mathematicians in this school!
April 9, 2025
Since flipping the calendar to April we have been doing some really cool stuff! Our 4th graders just finished watching a great (albeit, old) video series called "Buy Me That". It was created in the late 1990s and shows some ways that companies can try to trick you into buying their products. Below you see Luke and Sammi sharing some of what they learned.
IMG_6994.MOVIMG_6997.MOVOur 2nd grade classes are in the middle of an author study of David LaRochelle. We recently read his backward fairy tale called The End, and tried to put the silly story in the right order. Then we acted out all the parts, such as "the hungry giant threw a temper tantrum", "the prince's beard caught fire" and "the clever princess poured lemonade on the prince's face to put out the fire in his beard." It was a very fun class! Check out the book if you get the chance!
March 27, 2025
April is School Library Month. Here are some of the ways we are celebrating at RMS! Be sure to check out the amazing spring decorations by Mrs. Ratcliffe below. She has created 6 Easter eggs that are "hiding" great books from various sections of our library.
April is School Library Month!.mp4
March 26, 2025
Our school made it onto Melissa Stewart's website! Melissa is the author of many nonfiction books for kids. She is passionate about sharing nonfiction to eager young minds. I'm honored to have the opportunity to share one way we celebrate nonfiction at RMS. Check out her blog post featuring RMS!
March 12, 2025
Our 1st and 2nd graders are starting more practice with Breakout boxes. Enjoy these pictures of some of Mrs. Dinsmore and Ms. Maher's learners using our Breakout boxes.
February 24, 2025
We are on vacation this week, but not before we enjoyed a great Spirit Week put on by our Student Council. The week ended with a visit from the Cat in the Hat, who always brings shenanigans to our building!
That naughty Cat used the phone announcement system to tell jokes and got himself chased out of the building!
IMG_6849.MOVIMG_6851.MOVFebruary 10, 2025
The voting is done and the winners have been announced! Pictured below are the finalists from each grade. Please join me in Congratulating them for their creative work! I'm already looking forward to next year!
Kindergarten finalists - (left to right) - Luke (2nd place), Reagan (3rd place), Daxton, Nora, and Tyler (1st place - not pictured)
1st Grade finalists - (left to right) - Piper (2nd place), Maddy (3rd place), Abigail (1st place), Faye, and Olivia (not pictured)
2nd Grade finalists - (left to right) - Charlotte C, Alexander (2nd place), Briella L. Rose (1st place), and Hailey (3rd place)
3rd Grade finalists - (left to right) - Madison C (2nd place), Maddy (1st place), Grey, Logan, and James (3rd place)
4th Grade finalists - (left to right) - Viana (3rd place), Elaina (1st place), Rynn (2nd place), Lexi, and Evan G.
5th Grade finalists - (left to right) - Brooklyn (not pictured), Baylee (3rd place), Vinessa (2nd place), Connor, and Blake (1st place)
January 30, 2025
We are in the midst of voting in our first ever Story Book Tissue Box contest! We received 90 submissions! This far exceeded my expectations. Not only was our learners' amazing creativity on full display, but we also have gained 90 full tissue boxes during this long, cold, illness-infected winter, so it's a win-win for everyone. Three teachers stayed with me after school to narrow the field from 90 to just 30 (five from each grade, K-5) as finalists, but all 90 will still stay in our building until the tissues are used up. Enjoy this video displaying all of our entries!
Story Book Tissue Boxes.mp4January 17, 2025
December 17, 2024
It's Ladybug Voting Week! We have been voting since last Tuesday for our favorite Ladybug Picture book for this year. The kids have been journaling and crafting our way to this very day! Tomorrow I will send our results from RMS to the State Library in Concord and we will await the answer of the winning book. For our part, 100 Mighty Dragons All Named Broccoli stole the show here at RMS, but all nominees got some votes, proving that everyone likes different kinds of books.
November 26, 2024
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I would be remiss if I neglected to give thanks for this school and the wonderful kids I get to work with every day. Our learners recently read the book Beneath by Cori Doerrfeld. It is one of our Ladybug Picture book nominees and afterward, we made a great craft that showed the Above and Beneath drawings of our imaginative kiddos!
I also recently added an alphabet strip to the wall in each room. This is "for the kids" but I'm sure Mrs. Ratcliffe and I will be looking at it often while reshelving books. ;)
November 18, 2024
Today is the first day of our 2nd trimester! It's so hard to believe that 1/3 of the year is already done! Today's blog post contains three subjects - book fair purchases, The All-NEW Reading Nook, and axolotls.
If you have ever wondered what happens to the profit we earn from hosting book fairs, here is a small sample of what we were able to buy over the summer from last year's fairs. Decorations for the library (including for the Reading Nook) two chairs and a carpet for the Reading Nook, book displays, which we love and always want more of, and books - lots and lots of books! Thank you so much for your support!
We finally got all our boxes moved from the packing we did over the summer. It took a really long time, but it was worth it. We could finally put in our Reading Nook, a cozy, warm spot in the library where kids can lounge with books!
One of our Ladybug nominees is called A is for Axolotl - An Unusual Animal Alphabet, so of course, we had to make an axolotl craft. Here are some 2nd grade learners showing off their axoltols!
October 31, 2024
Not only is it Halloween, but our book fair is also in full swing! One of our teachers came to get me yesterday during Kindergarten and 1st grade recess to show me what some kids had done to my book fair sign. I was pleasantly surprised to find these girls proudly showing me how they decorated it! Definitely made me smile!
October 29, 2024
We have started a new program in the library called Soaring Selections! This was Mrs. Ratcliffe's idea to feature some of our learners' favorite books. Our first RMS Reader featured is Mathius from Mrs. DeGrandpre's room. Mathius is an avid reader and his selections will be proudly displayed for the next 6 day schedule rotation!
October 28, 2024
Learners in Ms. McCall's class got to listen to Can I Be Your Dog?, the 2019 Ladybug winner about a letter writing dog that asks every house on Butternut street if he can live with them. Poor Arfy lives in a cardboard box in the alley by himself and desperately wants a new home. After all the houses on Butternut Street say no, Arfy gets a surprise offer from someone who has been following his letters back and forth.
After reading the book, the class broke off into groups and used different manipulatives to make a dog house for Arfy. Here they are working and showing off their final product!
October 25, 2024
This afternoon I got together with my regional "Masterminds" group. This is a group of school librarians from across southern NH. We meet every other month to talk about all things library. It is a great networking opportunity for me and I'm so grateful that this week we talked through some of my questions about cataloging informational fiction books. The person who organizes us is Kim Palmer, the librarian extraordinaire at Milford High School. She's also the one who took this picture and unfortunately isn't in the photo with us. Looking forward to many more opportunities this year to work with and learn from these wonderful people!
October 14, 2024
We are almost halfway through our Ladybug nominees for this year and have just completed our first crafts. The Kindergarten and 1st graders make dragons out of the letter D, and the 2nd and 3rd graders made dragon party favors.
5th graders also completed their first Breakout Box. It was called Masters of Destiny. Destiny is the name of our library catalog and in order to succeed in this Breakout box, learners had to be familiar with finding books in the library when only given the title. Luckily, all the 5th graders were successful this time!
September 26, 2024 - Open House Night!
August 28, 2024
The first day of school! The first day that learners were able to see the amazing transformation of their school library! Starting on the last day of school last year, which was a 1/2 day, the ENTIRE library was packed into boxes, stored in the cafeteria for 2 1/2 months, while the two rooms of the library were repainted and new carpet was installed. It was a very, very busy for our school library! All of the shelves were rearrange and we implemented many new ways to display books and generate excitement. Enjoy this slideshow we proudly showed learners during their first class so they could see of all the changes!
December 4, 2023
What a busy year we have had so far! We have been doing Ladybug crafts with many of the nominees. The one pictured is Mrs. Meehan's class's artwork for the book Big Truck Little Island. We have done some book tasting with 4th a 5th grades. Pictured here is Mrs. Tuero's and Mrs. DeGrandpre's class members who decided to check out a book they tasted at the event. Finally, you see our very talented Pumpkin Design contest winners. Pictured left to right are McKenzie M., Senia M., Bella P., Emma L., Suri H., and Alaina C. Great work everyone!
June 13, 2023
The second grade was the first grade to return all of their library books so they were treated to a popsicle party as a reward!
June 6, 2023
Nothing like a little Harry Potter humor to help kids remember to bring their books back. :)
May 26, 2023
We wrapped up the Mo Willems author study with baguette tasting for Kindergarten! They each got two pieces of baguette and a choice from three different jellies. Food in the library? You bet!
May 10, 2023
5th graders participated in our Reading Cafe today. These students from each of the three classes found something at the book tasting that they are going to check out and enjoy some more. :)
March 17, 2023
It was St. Patrick's Day, but it was not luck that earned Mrs. Maher the Paraprofessional of the Year Award from the NH School Library Assocation. She is creative, passionate, and caring. She makes everyone at RMS better people just by being here. We are so lucky to have her!
November 29, 2022
The snowflakes were softly falling in the library while Mrs. Dean's class made their polar bear scenes after reading the Ladybug Picture Book nominee, A Polar Bear in the Snow.
October 31, 2022
And the winners are...
Charlotte C. (K), Aria G. (1st), Viana B. (2nd), Colin M. (3rd), Belle D. (4th), Melina R. (5th)
October 31, 2022
Here are the top 5 (and 6 for 5th grade) finalists with their amazing designs!
Kindergarten finalists
1st grade finalists
2nd Grade Finalists
3rd Grade Finalists
4th Grade Finalists
5th Grade Finalists
October 10, 2022
Get ready for some sp(book)tacular designs!
October 5, 2022
Mrs. Sulin's class created yarn birds to go with Mel Fell, one of this year's Ladybug Picture Book nominees.
January 28, 2022
Here are most of our bookmark contest winners!
January 25, 2022
These awesome 5th grade boys worked so hard on our puzzle! When it was time to line up, they had a hard time stopping the puzzle to leave. I FELT that desire to keep going and just "place one more!" hahaha
December 8, 2021
A couple of months ago, I lost a beloved aunt. She loved children and collecting Beanie Babies. After my cousins took all the beanie babies they could use, they gave the rest to me for use in the library. With the help of our fantastic, creative poem-writing Mrs. Maher, the Beanie Baby Book Buddy program was born. The kids LOVE this idea and I LOVE knowing how it honors my aunt.
Here are some students from Mrs. McNamara's class reading to their beanie babies.
June 8, 2021
Today I got an email with a photo of two of my very favorite things. Ladybug crowns and siblings helping each other. One of these 1st grade twins was home sick yesterday while the other was in school making his Ladybug crown and voting for his favorite book. He asked me if he could have the materials to help his brother make the crown at home and that is exactly what he did. I cannot love it enough. Thanks for being kind and thoughtful!
Today I got an email with a photo of two of my very favorite things. Ladybug crowns and siblings helping each other. One of these 1st grade twins was home sick yesterday while the other was in school making his Ladybug crown and voting for his favorite book. He asked me if he could have the materials to help his brother make the crown at home and that is exactly what he did. I cannot love it enough. Thanks for being kind and thoughtful!
April 2, 2021
Preschoolers loved making Ladybug crowns to wear while they voted for their favorite Ladybug nominee. The decided by looking through their journal to pick their favorite.
Preschoolers loved making Ladybug crowns to wear while they voted for their favorite Ladybug nominee. The decided by looking through their journal to pick their favorite.
March 23, 2021
4th graders made buidlings using tangrams after finishing a unit on the Chromebooks called Shapegrams. They got really into it! They made a city and had a pteradacyl as their air defense!
4th graders made buidlings using tangrams after finishing a unit on the Chromebooks called Shapegrams. They got really into it! They made a city and had a pteradacyl as their air defense!
November 19, 2020
Announcing book delivery for students that were in person and now are remote! There is no change to how students who have been remote all year are getting library books.
Announcing book delivery for students that were in person and now are remote! There is no change to how students who have been remote all year are getting library books.
October 16, 2020
The library is looking so colorful with artwork inspired by the Ladybug Picture books. Bicycle drawings and torn paper collage by 3rd graders and Crunch the Shy Dinosaurs by Kindergarten!
The library is looking so colorful with artwork inspired by the Ladybug Picture books. Bicycle drawings and torn paper collage by 3rd graders and Crunch the Shy Dinosaurs by Kindergarten!
October 9, 2020
3rd graders made torn paper landscapes to try the same method of illustration that Oge Mora uses in her book Saturday, which is one of this year's Ladybug Picture book nominees. It wasn't as easy as you'd think, but the pictures came out so great!
3rd graders made torn paper landscapes to try the same method of illustration that Oge Mora uses in her book Saturday, which is one of this year's Ladybug Picture book nominees. It wasn't as easy as you'd think, but the pictures came out so great!
5th graders spent part of Friday exploring some of our Bitmoji Classroom and Choice Board options on their Chromebooks.
5th graders spent part of Friday exploring some of our Bitmoji Classroom and Choice Board options on their Chromebooks.
October 2, 2020
Our 1st graders made their very own Crunch the Shy Dinosaurs!
Our 1st graders made their very own Crunch the Shy Dinosaurs!
May 28, 2020
We will really miss our 2020 graduates!
We will really miss our 2020 graduates!
May 19, 2020
Our lucky bike winner claimed her prize yesterday!
May 14, 2020
The results of our year-long Teacher Book Battle are finally in!
April 17, 2020
April 7, 2020
It sure has been a whirlwind the past couple of weeks as we have been adjusting to remote learning. All of us in the library (Mrs. Maher, Mrs. Tenters, and especially the stuffed animals) are missing our students so much! Hopefully, seeing them will put a smile on your face. (They had a fantastic time playing outdoors yesterday. The weather was so nice! Hopefully, you got outside to enjoy it too!)
March 12, 2020
Thanks to the generous donation from an anonymous parent, one student that reads and reviews ALL the books on the 2nd-3rd grade Teacher Book Battle list will have a brand new ride!
December 20, 2019
We had 208 amazing designs for our first ever bookmark design contest and here are your 6 grade level winners! Congrats to Renna, Caleb, Devin, Jasmyn, Ella, and Reyna!
November 26, 2019
The Ladybug voting has begun!
November 22, 2019
We are having a bookmark design contest! Everyone will get a student designed bookmark in time for Christmas.
November 7, 2019
Brain breaks are my favorite!
October 31, 2019
Happy Halloween from the Creepy Carrots of RMS!
October 29, 2019
Our new sign is a lesson is reading the WHOLE thing. I cannot tell you how many times I hear, "but it's not November" (or whatever other month is listed).
October 17, 2019
We are getting ready for a Spooktacular Halloween!
October 8, 2019
The sight of kids reading their books together on the Reading Rug will never grow old for me. <3
October 7, 2019
We have started reading the Ladybug Picture Book nominees to grades K-3. Such great fun at the beginning of the year and the anticipation of which book will win is palpable!
May 14, 2019
The 5th graders all tackled a Breakout Box this week. About half of the groups managed to break out in time. The other half didn't beat the clock. All of them learned (hopefully) some good lessons on how to work successfully in a group.
March 26, 2019
We read the book Library Mouse with Kindergarten. A great inspirational story by Daniel Kirk for kids to see themselves as authors, through a mouse's eyes, of course! :)
March 14, 2019
No words needed. <3
March 10, 2019
Check out the latest bulletin board and door decorations by the wonderful and fantastic Mrs. Maher! Think Spring everyone!
A new hanging place for our latest sticker mosaic. I can look at it all day! :)
February 15, 2019
Fun with facial hair...Mrs. Maher created these mustaches in honor of the Lorax. We may have heard, "I mustache you a question" once or twice. Could these kids get any cuter?
February 14, 2019
Our 2nd sticker mosaic is done! Kids reading....just in time for Read Across America Week! Thank you all for helping create our masterpiece!
February 8, 2019
January 31, 2019
January 29, 2019
We just finished up Breakout Boxes with 1st grade and 4th grade. We've never done it with 1st grade, but it went very well! We're also gearing up for another sticker mosaic.
December 11, 2018
One of my favorite things to see in the library. <3
December 10, 2018
It's snowing on our book Christmas tree! Feeling festive in the RMS library. :)
November 30, 2018
We finished the sticker mosaic yesterday! Here are a few pictures and a short video showing our progress. It took us 13 days to do 4,000 stickers! Keep your eyes open for another one coming soon!
November 14, 2018
Today we had our first correct student guess for our sticker mosaic! Congratulations to Sharlise in 4B who correctly guessed hot air balloons! The second picture is from 11/8/18, the first day that 4 teachers in the building saw the balloons! Amazing!
November 13, 2018
It's Turkey Time!
It's Turkey Time!
Mrs. Maher created this beautiful turkey. No calories and will not make you tired. :)
November 2, 2018
Let's Stick Together!
Let's Stick Together!
On Monday November 5th we will start our first Let's Stick Together sticker mosaic. There are over 4,000 tiny stickers that everyone at RMS will work together to make a cool picture. We'll give stickers out in library and classroom teachers will have them too. We'll also put out a guess jar once the picture starts to come to life. Should be a lot of fun! How long will it take us?
October 15, 2018
We are in the midst of reading and journaling about the Ladybug Picture books. Kindergarten and 1st grade students are hearing the stories and drawing a picture of what happens and deciding whether they like the book or not. 2nd and 3rd graders are writing at least one sentence about the book (some do more!) and giving it a 1-5 star rating.
Example of 1st grade journal page.
Example of 3rd grade journal.
October 14, 2018
The library underwent a lot of changes this summer! We moved furniture and organized the whole collection into categories that will hopefully make more sense for kids. Don't worry though, the Dewey Decimal System is still there, it just takes more of a supporting role now. :)
Signs on the end caps show us which side of the shelves we can find which kinds of books.
Signs everywhere to show us which category we are looking at.
Each category is arranged in this order.
Each book has a special category sticker OVER the call number.
Our desks were moved near the windows!
New signs to help find bigger sections!
The Reading Rug has moved by the front door.
June 6, 2018
The last weeks of library class has included more Breakout Box challenges and just plain enjoying good books. 4th and 5th graders did Breakout Boxes to find out which book won the Great Stone Face Award this year and 2nd and 3rd graders were doing a challenge called Little Red, trying to save grandma from the Big Bad Wolf.
April 17, 2018
To celebrate Children's Book Month, we have been helping Scorch the Dragon grow his tail by reading! Look at how long it has gotten just since the beginning of April! We will end this challenge at the end of the month, but Scorch's colorful tail will be up for a while longer for kids to admire their hard work!
February 5, 2018
Kindergarten teachers dropped off their students and were surprised to pick up a class of library mice. Students had fun making a mouse mask after reading the Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk, which inspires kids to see themselves as authors and illustrators.
February 1, 2018
1st graders did a great job of playing a Memory game that challenged their book care knowledge.
December 15, 2017
Breakout Boxes! All classes 2nd grade through 5th grade tried out our Breakout Boxes! Most classes exhibited great teamwork and problem solving. This was a great challenge and a lot of fun!
November 11, 2017
Teachers did some training on our new Breakout Boxes!
Jun 6, 2018
October 15, 2018
Not only is it Halloween, but our book fair is also in full swing! One of our teachers came to get me yesterday during Kindergarten and 1st grade recess to show me what some kids had done to my book fair sign. I was pleasantly surprised to find these girls proudly showing me how they decorated it! Definitely made me smile!
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