Saturday, August 18, 2012

Classroom Library

I attended several professional development workshops and read several books over the summer and heard about the importance of having a well organized classroom library. My library has always been organized, but it has always been by level; either according to AR level or by Fountas and Pinnell guided reading level. But, after all the pd I received this summer, I knew I needed to do more.

Therefore, my goal when heading to school on Wednesday was to completely reorganize all if my books. I was kidding myself because I thought I would be able to finish the whole project in a few hours.

Here are a couple of before pictures. I obviously had a lot of work to do.



After sorting through my books, I came up with the following categories:

* Genres - general fiction, realistic fiction, historical fiction, folktales, fairy tales, legends, tall tales, poetry, biographies, mysteries, science content, social studies content, math content
* Author studies
* Novel sets
* Leveled Library

Here is the final product. (I included a lot of pictures.)

Entire library


Novel Sets

Content Area books - science, social studies, math


Leveled Library


Genres and Author Studies




After three days of laboring on this project, sitting in meetings, and helping in other classrooms, my classroom library is finally finished.... Well not really, every classroom is getting more books next week. I'm not sure where I will put them.

UPDATE!!
Here are two updated pictures of my classroom library. Here is what I added:
* Stuffed animals - I wanted to make the library more welcoming. My scholars will be allowed to take one to read with during free reading time.
* Clear pockets for book check out - my scholars will write the title and location of the books they check out on an index card and stick them in the pockets. I still need to place their student number on the chart pockets.
* Tub numbers - I gave each tub/shelf a number. When the students check out the books they will write down that number so they know where to return the books.




I am so proud of my library. I'm excited to see my scholars use this library. How is your classroom library organized?

8 comments:

  1. Looks great! My library is organized by genre. I am moving to 5th from kindergarten so my library is still growing.

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    1. Wow, kindergarten to fifth, that's a huge jump. I used to teach second but that's nothing compared to K. I miss the younger students but fifth graders are fun. Good luck with the transition.

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  2. Just stumbled across your blog and I am OBSESSEEEEEED with your classroom library! Every year I say that I am going to level my books and organize them better and have been way too lazy to finish (it takes so much time!) But, I love the setup you have! Right now I only have half of my books sorted into genre/series and hope to tackle the other half of my books next year (haha, yeah too worn out this year!)

    Following your blog! I love reading fellow 5th grade teacher blogs (most of the ones I find are always elementary!)

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    1. Thank you!! I'm obsessed with it too right now. This is my 10th year teaching and this was the most time I've ever spent working on my library (about 15 total hours) but I think it will be worth it. You should go ahead and organize yours. You will be glad you did. Thanks for following my blog.

      Katrina

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  3. So many books! I really need to get some more books for my personal library this year. Thanks for the inspiration!

    Fifth Grade Dugout

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  4. Great tips, many thanks for sharing. I have printed and will stick on the wall! I like this blog. SIOP Feature 4 Identify Supplementary Materials to Use

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