Organizing Our Classroom Library

First Day of School: Neat but not Organized

Setting up your classroom library is one of those tasks most elementary teachers do over the summer.  They come in on one of their vacation days and sweat it out for a few hours in order to get books into baskets with cute tags to label them so that when the children arrive, it's all set up ready for browsing.

On the other hand, I have my students sort our library!

I do go in over the summer to make my library look very neat (just not organized).  I actually just replaced some of my baskets this year to make the library look neater.  I also have lots of book bin labels ready made at the start of the year.  So some years I might use the "C.S. Lewis" label but other years I might use the "Chronicles of Narnia" label and the author label stays filed away for another year.  But if a couple new labels need making based on their ideas once they get started I do it!

After the first day (30 minutes of sorting)

We talk about 4 ways to organize:  Series, Author, Genre, and Topic.  They come to fourth grade knowing a LOT about genres so all I do is a quick refresher on using text features like pictures, clues in the title, and skimming the back cover. 

Next I put a basket of books at each group with a packet of small Post It Notes.The kids go through the basket and make piles on their desks with the labels, and I go around taking piles and laying them on the shelf out of their way.  When a group is almost finished I drop another basket off at their desk.

After the second day

In order to ensure a higher success rate I do tend to make sure that there are some "like" books in each basket.  For example, I might have 7 A to Z Mysteries, 5 Beverly Cleary books, and 8 nonfiction in a basket along with a few "other."  After all, when they are packed up, like books are near each other anyway, so it's not much extra work just to check and make a few adjustments.

If we can't get it all finished in one day (I do this activity at the end of the day) I leave one basket at each group so they have something to browse through during their "I'm Done, Now What" time the next day.  The remaining unsorted baskets go back on the shelf with a red card inside, so they know at a glance what's left.

Before I add my colorful book bin labels I usually make a few changes once they go home in order to have the right amount of baskets and space, but it really helps the kids become familiar with what I have available to read and where to find it from the very start.  It gets kids interacting with the baskets instead of approaching them with a sense of not being sure where to start.

Taking the role of facilitator instead of provider when it comes to organizing the library also helps those kids who get stuck in a "reading rut" and visit the same old book basket again and again, hoping that another book from their favorites series will magically appear.  And for a handful of kids, it gets them excited to find a new, different book.  They'll ask me, "I know this is a fantasy book, but instead of putting it in the basket am I allowed to keep it?"  What better way to get kids reading than to make them beg for it? 

So even though our district adopted a basal program a few years ago, I still make time at the beginning of the year to let them be the ones to organize the books they'll be choosing to read.  How do you help your students take ownership over their classroom library? 

Classroom Library Setup: Uniform Book Basket Color

I'm back from visiting my husband's family in England and had an amazing time as always!  We got back last week and after unpacking and recovering from the time difference we went in on Friday to begin the classroom setup process.

Since our custodians set up our furniture for us (roughly, based on a classroom map we provide) we started by cleaning.  My husband is sweet enough to help me with this so that I can get right into organizing.  You may remember that 4 of the 6 goals I set for my summer projects included the classroom library, kids' manipulatives shelf, kids' materials shelf, and the students' paperwork table (each link brings you to a blog post).  Although I've already made good headway on these 4 goals, the first project I completed is the bookshelf. 

It looked like this mostly still packed up (left). I wasn't planning on radical changes from previous years.  I made new labels last year (the link will bring you to a blog post) which I enjoy so I'll be reusing them; I just wanted uniform colored baskets.  Since I had more black than any other color, I decided to go with it; I just bought a few more. 

 And here's how it looked at the end of Monday.

 Not.  Enough.  BASKETS!!!

From now on:  Measure twice, shop once.  Don't make my mistake, people.

That afternoon I went to 3 different stores:  Walmart, Target, then Bed Bath and Beyond.  NO ONE had black baskets or dishpans.  :(  Finally I went online and found a different Walmart in my area that had them, so here's the after photo:

Yay!  

You may be wondering, "Amber, do you really have so much time on your hands that you felt the urge to add blue trim to your bookshelf?"  And to that I say there is a PURPOSE besides beatification.  As I was cleaning on Monday I got a splinter from that shelf (not for the first time).  My students have got splinters from that shelf.  I decided that trimming out the shelves in Duck Tape would not just be a way to carry my color scheme through; it would also be a safety feature!  Although I'm sure it will look even more amazing once the aqua bordered book bin labels are attached.  :)  I'll have to wait to show that off, however, since I do a library sorting activity with my students the first week of school so I need them blank until then. 

Since I'm making good progress on my projects, I've decided to publish a BONUS post on Friday.  Not only will I have more photos to show you of the process and result of my summer projects, I also  have a special announcement that I think you'll enjoy!

In the meantime, for anyone who's interested, here are a few of my England vacation photos:

 Remember, come back Friday for a (time sensitive) bonus post!

Classroom Library (Summer Project #5)

The next Summer Project I'll be working on is a cosmetic upgrade in my classroom library.  At the end of last year I was feeling really proud of my bookshelves, and at the end of the day, they do work!  They look all right, the kids can find things to read and they can find where to put them back when they're done. But here we are at the end of this year revisiting them.  Like I said before, there's always room for improvement!

What works:

1. Those new book bin labels are beautiful and they held up just fine!  I don't want to change them at all unless it's to add to them (the kids will decide that when they organize the books at the start of the year).
2. The location.  With closets and a sink on the right wall, window shelves on the left wall, and whiteboards in the front, the back is the only logical place for our library.
3. The basic system.  I mainly have fiction on the left and nonfiction on the right. 
4. Having the kids fine tune the organization the first week.  I offer loads of guidance, but the bottom line is I still feel it's important for the kids to get to know our library that first week, and the best way to do it is to dig, sift, and sort through those books.
5. I think I'll keep the leveled readers where they are on the adjacent wall on the window shelf.  They just "felt" right there at the lower level, near our reading group area even though it's over the math area instead of on top of the library.  There's also the added bonus that kids don't get confused and take them for independent reading. 

What doesn't work:

1. There are too many different colors of bins here.  I want a more cohesive look.  Since I'm taking the shoeboxes from the book shelves to use on the math manipulatives shelf, it's time to decide what style is staying, and what goes.  The first step is to measure and the next is to think of cost.  I have more black bins than anything else, so if I can find more of those, all the better! 
2. The white containers can then go on top to hold "special collections" like the social studies trade books.  The white will blend right into the wall anyway. 

A quick fix, except it's one of the few that will cost a little money. 

Reading Corner Upgrades This Year

The bookshelves have been improved!

As I mentioned in my beginning of the year post, the bookshelves needed an update.  When I first inherited my classroom, my predecessor used a lot of pink and yellow.  I didn't think a room like that would feel very welcoming to 10 year old boys, so I changed that within the year.  But I didn't banish ALL pink from my room.  I also had some double sided pink and purple index cards, which I used to make labels for my book bins.  Well, they were looking a little frayed and ratty.  Most of them were laminated, but since I always change which books to feature and which ones I lump into the generic "realistic fiction" or "science" bin, sometimes I don't make it to the laminator every time.

Well, this year I decided it was time for an upgrade.  Not only was it time to change the colors to fit the color scheme I have going on (teal, aqua, lime green, with brown and white for neutrals) but I needed to change out my font.  I had tried to get creative with my fonts, but the result was not only a mis-mash of styles, they were also not as clear as a nice bold sans serif font is.  So I used the same font I use on the product thumbnail of my TPT store because I figured if it's been clear and eye-catching on a 1 inch picture for web surfers, it should be clear enough enlarged on an index card.

Result!

Now, those of you who also follow my TPT store may be thinking, "Those are not the same book bin labels that you sell."  And it's true.  I personally like to have graphics on my labels even at the 4th grade level.  We all can't help to think of Nike when we see the swoosh; visual marketing is powerful.  But I can't sell those labels commercially for one simple reason:  Copyright infringement.  I know not everyone follows that rule, but there you go.  I also know that some upper elementary teachers think that having the graphics is too busy or too babyish.  So I use the style that works for me, personally, and the labels I sell are legal, contain all the same popular 4th grade titles that many teachers are looking for, have a nice bold, clear font, they're color coded for fiction as well as nonfiction, and they have an attractive, free for commercial use border.  Although there is space for a graphic if you wish to add one, those teachers who have bought and used them as is were saved a lot of work for less than $2.

But back to the organization.  My next fix was the Guided Reading Group materials that were previously located on opposite ends of my classroom.  See, the leveled books are on the windowsill shelf at the rug area, where I meet with my groups.  There are sign out cards in the book bins with the kid's names and book titles.  But then on the other side of the room were the postings of students' names, book titles for the week, and differentiated worksheets.  It was a pain all year.  It was never a smooth transition for the inclusion teacher.  I had to get everything in one spot. 

You may be thinking, "Why not put them on top of the shelf above," but I thought:

1. It might be to confusing for kids to know which books they should and should not take out when reading for pleasure/choice.

2.  I use the top shelf as well as the wall space for other things throughout the year.

So the best solution I could see was to move the postings from the bulletin board to the (non-functioning) window shade.

Not bad.  We'll see how it works out once we start groups later in the month!