Classroom Library Organization....Time Savers!

I am a hoarder. I will admit it. I hoard books. Children’s books. I have thousands of them. {Most are packed away in my garage right now since I don’t have a ‘homeroom’ and a place for a classroom library} BOO.

About 7 years ago I moved to a new school, new district, new grade… and I figured that was my chance to really work on having an organized classroom BEFORE the kids got there. My administration let us work in our rooms all summer {as long as we stayed away from the freshly waxed floors}. So I took that opportunity to sit and come up with a plan. I have followed Jessica Meacham’s blog for a very long time. I kinda adore her. <3 a="" in="" non-creepy="" span="" way="" weird="">…} Well, she had a post on her blog about organizing a classroom library that I really connected with. I would be teaching firsties again, so I wanted to make a system for the books to stay organized AND would be something I wasn’t constantly keeping up with – SO I took her ideas and made them work for me. Mrs. Meacham has these cute bins that she put on O-ring on with a badge protector, and put a label inside the badge protector. GENIUS!  This way my books weren’t ALL out at one time, they weren’t overwhelming, and I could somewhat keep track of them.

SO – I borrowed Mrs. Meacham’s idea of the book bins....

{If you haven't checked out her website.... DO IT!}

(I found all of mine at the Dollar Tree) and labels, O-rings, and badge protectors…. I set about sorting, labeling, and organizing all my books. Which was such a blessing – it started in my classroom library and moved onto my teacher library. I have hardback books of many paperback books that I use when I do book walks or whole group… So I organized the books the kids looked at and I organized my ‘teacher’ children’s books too. The funniest thing to me…. I actually contributed some of these labels to her site when I was working on my classroom library! {So – my name is on her page! Go ME!}

{screen shot of her book bin page... Yes, I am a DORK!}

Here is how I made this work for me… I put a label on the book bin AND I put one inside the front cover of the book. This way my littles only had to match a picture to put the book back into the proper bin… No more hours spent organizing! Voila! The kids did it for me and kept it up!

As I moved to different grades… I would change the system as needed. In second grade, the genre of the book was important – so I took out my bins and changed the labels around – all the green bins held my fiction books, that were also organized one theme per bin. The blue bins held my non-fiction books. The red bins held my author studies (all my Audrey Wood in one red book bin, Eric Carle in another…) All my series books would be in yellow bins – and so on.  When I moved back to first – I just put out a few book bins – maybe 10 – and I would change them every month – While I was back in first – I would have a special book bin dedicated to the ‘theme’ for that month {October – Halloween books, Pumpkin non-fiction…} After I completed a read-aloud – I would put that book in the special book bin for the kids to look at during the week, then I would remove it at the end of the week and add it back to MY teacher book bins. Making sense? I hope so! 

How do you organize your classroom library? Any tips? :) 

Fonts - Hello Handprint - Jen Jones, Hello Literacy, Hello Fonts

Graphics - Ms. Tiina