Classroom Library!

My classroom library is probably where I spend most of my time with classroom set up.  I like the library to be one of the very best parts of my classroom, where kids really want to go.  It is the heart of our classroom and how kids can really enjoy reading. 

Building Excitement for the Library the 1st Week!

One of my teammates had a brilliant idea last year to build excitement for her classroom library by taping it off the first week (or so) and build up anticipation.  During that first week before unveiling the library we would teach some key lessons about the library. 

1) How to treat books in the library

We talk a lot about how to treat our books in school and at home at this time.  I like to read this book to the kids when learning about this.

2) Teaching Kids to Pick out Good Fit Books

I teach quite a few lessons on this and really drill why it is important to pick good fit books.

-This is one of the strategies in my beanie baby fluency pack and a good reminder.

-I use the Daily 5 shoe lesson to teach this skill too, I love that lesson.

-I also use the book “Goldisocks and the Three Libearians.”  There is also a YouTube video of this book and it is a good for discussion on good fit books.

P.S. While the library is taped off, I still start launching Reading to Self and Read to Someone lessons.  Since the kids need books in their book boxes for this I pull some leveled books out of the library and put in bins somewhat strategically based on my estimate on where kids are at (I usually look where they ended at the previous year).  I don’t tell the kids that I pre-planned out where they would pull books from, but I do send them in “random” (looking to them) groups that pick from a bin in the room that they are probably close to.  During this time I am usually testing and/or reading with kids and getting an idea of where they are at to help me with assisting them with book shopping.

Unveiling the New Library

We make a big deal out of this day!! We cut the rope (with a large scissors that one would use for a ceremony) and then we celebrate with a class tour of the library.

Keeping excitement for reading ALL year

I do PULL some bins (mostly series books) that I know kids really like OUT of the library before the year starts.  I introduce these bins throughout the year to keep the excitement for reading high throughout the whole year!!! I also teach Schema and background knowledge and how it helps us read and sometimes after I read a couple books from a series to the class I unveil the bin from that series and everyone wants to read the books from that bin.  They love when we get "new books" for the classroom.  While we do get new books throughout the year from the book fair and from Scholastic, the new bins that I save to introduce throughout the year are like new books that the kids get into.

Another way it seems has really kept my readers engaged is our class “Recommendation Chart”

This chart is next to a “Recommended Books” bin where kids can grab a book that someone else recommended.

I feel that doing these things are important because no matter what reading program I  use, the only way my kids really take off in reading is if they learn to love reading.  The rest seems to come with that motivation.

Library Organization

 I have spent a lot of time organizing my classroom library so that it is easy and fun for kids to "Book Shop.”

I go "Book Shopping" with my kids (especially in the beginning of the year) to help them find good fit books.   As the year goes on usually they are independently book shopping more. 

Having an organized library (with engaging books) is so important to me because it is easier for me to help kids and easier for them to pick independently.   It is also super nice because if the library is organized, kids take care of it better and I can have kids return books as a job and they know exactly where to put them.

I personally pick some “Book Experts” at the beginning of the year that return books for a while (and I teach them how exactly to do it) and they have that job for a while that then we switch it throughout the year.  I don’t like having just anybody return books because it seems like books get put in the wrong spots and it is harder to find a book that way.

Whether I am helping kids pick out books or they are picking independently, I organize my library very specifically to help kids have access to a lot of books that are a good fit and interesting to them!

Library Arrangement:

I THEME a bunch of my picture books by Seasons and Times of the year

I put these in one part of my library (in order) and pull out the whole bin in a “featured” area in the front of the library during that time of year

These are a few of the seasonal bins that I have.  These particular labels are from here.

I put books that we have read together/were used for a lesson or go with the theme(s) of the week or month in our "Featured Books" bin.

Having labels for the back of books that match the bin that they go into has really helped keep our library organized:

-I also THEME a bunch of other popular choices

(I got these bins from Amazon here.)

Themes and Series that are relatively the same level and I know what it is, I keep near that range of leveled books too.  For example, the books above are mostly I’s and J’s.  I keep them right above my “I” leveled bins

These are all series books that are mostly J and K Levels, so I keep them close to my leveled books that those levels so that is it easy for me to point a student in the direction of these books if I know those levels are a good fit for them.

Nonfiction Section

I have an entire section of my library for Nonfiction.  Most nonfiction books are themed but I also have nonfiction books leveled too.  Since I teach the Lucy Calkins Reader’s Workshop units of study in my district, there are a couple units specifically teaching nonfiction.  I found it helpful to make sure that students have a bag of nonfiction books that are still a good fit in their book box during these units.  Especially since it is difficult at times to find good fit nonfiction for a lot of kids.  Many times kids are just looking at the pictures.

(These brown boxes are very reasonably priced and I personally like how they look.  I got them here)

These are the leveled bins for my nonfiction area.  I made them a different color to keep them organized.

-Leveled Bins - I do think that it is important to have some leveled bins in my library.  I like knowing for sure that kids have some good fit books in their book bins for sure to read each day.

Here are some of the bin labels that I use.

The black dot labels are from here.

Purple labels are from here.

I use "colors" to sort my estimated leveled books.  These are for books that don't really fit into a theme of mine that I would like to level but they don't have a level.  For these I put them in a color of a range.  For example, my pink bin is all J-L books.

Chapter Books

I order my chapter books on the shelf by level (just for my own mental note while helping kids pick out a good fit chapter book.)  I put M's together like Junie B. Jones, etc. and kind of go in order that way.

These are some of the signs that I put out in my library to organize different sections.  They are included in all the different library organizing packets that are listed below.

My favorite bins that I use in my library are the clear bins from Really Good Stuff.

I also use these clear bins for my kids book boxes.  I am trying to switch most of my books to these bins because the books don’t bend in them at all and they can fit larger picture books without taking up that much space.

This might be the best bin of our classroom library.  We put all of the books that we have written as a “class” (where each student has a part written by them).  They love reading these books throughout the year.  At my school, there isn’t very much space on walls that we can post a whole bunch of student writing, so these books are how they publish their work so that other’s can see.  Many times I make copies of a certain writing that we are doing for the book and they bring the original home.

You can view the packet above here.  It has everything I use to organize my library with different styles of gray backgrounds for each label.

You can view the packet with everything you see below here.  It has everything I use to organize my library with different styles of blue backgrounds for each label.

All of the black polka dot library materials below can be viewed here.