Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Classroom Library


I mention on a post lately how I spent a lot of time organizing my classroom library. This post will share with you some of the things that have worked. I would love to hear from anyone to add ideas. I have a lot of books in my room. I do put some away, but I don't have a lot of storage space. 





I put all of my books on Library Things it's a site that has a database of all your books. A lifetime membership was twenty dollars. 
I love labels, and my MUST HAVE ones are the Avery 5408 you can feed these right into your printer. I started using these to label my library, but you can use them for everything!!!!! You can find them at Staples.
 I recently watched a video by the Sisters, and they were helping a teacher with organizing her classroom. 

The tip was to have a list of all your books hanging on the wall in your classroom. 

My list is below. 

Give each book bucket a number and put the number on the back of each book

 Make time during the week to have kids take buckets out and check for numbers!!!
 You can download the book list below


                                         
                            These are what I call Dot Books

They are leveled, and I often suggested for kids you should go shopping in the yellow dot, blue dot, etc. 

The books are stored in ice cube containers; you can find these at dollar stores and sometimes Target.  


This is my nonfiction shelf and math books at the bottom. You can see that I used the ice cube trays here too!! This shelf is not in ABC order.
These are author buckets in ABC order. 
I have the author's name on the corner of the book.

The theme buckets start with A and stay in ABC order until I hit the nonfiction shelf.
For topics and authors that I have a ton of I use these buckets from IKEA. 

IKEA has the best buckets for everything! Great prices too.

This is an example of the labels I use for the big buckets and author labels too.


Student Book Buckets
My goal is for the kids to put books they read with me. I also want them to select some Just Right Books and some Look Books in these buckets too.  



I try to pull books I know I am going to use for mini-lessons

I went to a workshop years ago by Ellen Thompson she shared how to make these flower boxes to store books on the top of your shelves.  If you're interested in making them click HERE.

Just to show what it looks like on the top of the shelf. She also had directions to make one long one that is the size of the two above.

Long List for Library (DR) Book List Two ABC (DR)

15 comments:

  1. I love the wooden boxes, genius!! I need to get the hubby to make me some :) Your entire library looks wonderful!
    Amy
    TheResource(ful)Room!

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  2. Hi,
    Your labels are so clear and fresh looking. I was wondering what font you used. Thanks very much - I love your website and think your students must have the best time! You have given me many ideas for my K's.
    Thanks again,
    Michelle

    ReplyDelete
  3. the font is called smiley monster you can download it free from Kevin and Amanda's font site!

    http://www.kevinandamanda.com/fonts/freescrapbookfonts/smiley-monster/

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  4. I really like the student book buckets-flat and don't take up too much room. Great organization!
    Lori
    Conversations in Literacy

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for linking up!!!! I am loving looking through all of the amazing libraries for ideas. Your library is AMAZING!!!! Anyone that walks into your room knows how much you love reading, children's literature. : )

    Thanks again!

    Amy

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  6. Thank you for including me!! Have a great weekend Amy! Melissa

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  7. I'm so late to this linky party but I am sooo glad I found your post! I am in the middle of re vamping my library for next year and I love your organization! WOW! Great job! And I follow you on Pinterest!

    Mandi

    MOORE Fun In Kindergarten

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  8. Thanks Mandi! Organizing the class library feels like it never ends! Melissa

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  9. I just found this post and I love it! I could really use some shelves. I have a ton of books that I want to bring to school to share with the kiddos, but I have no place to put them-no shelving and very little space. Where did you get the shelf with your students' book tubs? I really like that idea rather than using Ziploc baggies which I have to since I don't have any other way for them to keep their read-to-self books.

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  10. Hi Lee Ann, I got that shelf a long time ago...I think it was School Specialty. This year I have a shelf that I put aside and store all of my author's in abc order. You can sometimes find inexpensive shelves at IKEA . Thanks for your comment. Melissa

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  11. Hi- Melissa,
    Are you willing to share the labels that you created for your bins? Thanks so much!

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  12. What wonderful ideas! Thank you so much for sharing.

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