Monday Motivation

Happy Monday!

I’m linking up with Jen at Teacher by the Beach for some Monday Motivation!  I’ll definitely be looking through all the blogs on the linky while lying around the house today . . . we are having a heat wave so I don’t see myself going outside much unless Murphie makes me.  🙂

My classroom library is one of, if not THE, favorite space in my room.

I’ve blogged about it before, I’ve put it on Instagram, I’ve basically just been showing off like a big ole nincompoop.

I mean, I might as well be shouting from the rooftops and shaking people by the shoulders:

LOOK AT MY LIBRARY!

Believe me.  I know.  It’s kind of obnoxious.

But.

LOOK AT MY LIBRARY!!!!

It has evolved over the years in the “looks” department.  In the beginning, it was one bookshelf.  Then two.  Then three.  I had no seating.  Then I had some kiddie style lawn chairs for my kids to sit in.  Then I had IKEA chairs for my kids to sit in.  One thing led to another and now I have these benches AND THEY ARE MY FAVORITE.

You can read all about the details of that and get a tutorial {HERE}.

But this post is about ORGANIZATION and TIPS so here goes.

No matter what my library has looked like over the years, the organization has stayed the same.

Christina (Mrs. Winter’s Bliss) and I used to teach together IN REAL LIFE and I got the idea from her.  It’s this:  You can run out of letters but you can never run out of numbers.  So I NUMBERED my library.

GENIUS, right?

At the moment, I have 12 baskets in my library.  They are numbered 1 – 12.  The labels have evolved and changed over the years but they’ve always been numbered 1 – 12.  All of my books have a little round orange sticker (I have no idea why I used orange because I’ve never had anything orange nor ever really even liked the color orange) on the front.  It’s usually in the top right hand corner or the top left hand corner (I’m going by memory) and I just use a marker to write the matching number on the orange sticker.

In other words, I don’t have to find a label, print a label, buy a label . . . I just get the sheet of orange stickers (of which I apparently have a NEVER ENDING SUPPLY BECAUSE I HAVE NEVER RUN OUT IN ALL THESE YEARS), peel one off, write the number on it, stick it on the book, and place the book in the corresponding basket.

Alright.  So.

The numbers.

I do not have a Dewey Decimal System.  I do not have an Accelerated Reader system (although my school uses A.R.).

I just have  A TON OF BOOKS that kids want to read and touch and hold and borrow and read over and over again.  And that’s exactly what I wanted so yay me.

I get most of my books through Scholastic.  Numbers 1 -3 are literally the Scholastic levels.  The books will say 1, 2, or 3 on them.  Here’s an example of what I mean:

That’s a “Level 2” so I would just place one of my handy dandy orange stickers on this and write a “2” on it and put it in Basket Number 2.

The other baskets are more “theme-y”.  I have baskets for books on all things Science, Math, Social Studies, Holidays, ABCs, Seasons, chapter books, etc.  One of the most popular baskets is number 9 which is my collection of Yearbooks from our school for the last 16 years.  The kids love finding me in the super old ones (I look RIDICULOUS) and/or finding their brothers, sisters, friends, and themselves in their kinder class.  They “read” these yearbooks like you wouldn’t believe.

Hey!  There’s my name! (even though it isn’t them)

The other most popular basket is number 12 which holds our All About Me Books.  🙂

I have never wanted to change my system.  This just works for me.  It’s simple.  It doesn’t take a lot of effort.

And I don’t want an A.R. library.  I want my kids to view our class library as a welcoming place where each and every book is available to them, whether it’s too hard, too easy, has zero words, several chapters, etc etc etc.  I want to foster the love of reading in every child and I want my kids to WANT TO SIT AND READ in our library.

The library is totally and completely theirs.  All of the books in our class library are for my kids.

They are completely separate from “my” Read Aloud/Teaching books.

Those books are located behind my whiteboard.

This picture was taken about four or five years ago.  I’ve since added to this collection in a I’m the crazy cat lady type of way except I’m the crazy book lady.  Amazon Prime has NOT helped with this AT ALL.  🙂

It has since spilled over into the next section behind my whiteboard and does not look quite as neat because some of the books do not fit and I have to put them on top.  Oh well.  I am okay with it looking not as neat because I HAVE ALL THE BOOKS.

My kids get to touch, read, hold, and borrow all of these books, too.  You can read about how I organize that {HERE}.  It’s a whole ‘nother kind of system that also makes me look like the Crazy Book Lady.

So there you go.

Those are my tips.

In a nutshell:

Numbers, Little Round Stickers That Last Forever, Scholastic, and Amazon.

Oh.

And also:

LET YOUR KIDS TOUCH AND READ AND BORROW AND HOLD ALL THE BOOKS.

🙂

🙂

🙂