Monday Motivation - Classroom Library Organization and Tips

Hey folks! I'm here to link up with Teacher by the Beach for her weekly Monday Motivation link up. Today is all about classroom library organization!

I am currently finishing up my mat leave so all I have for pictures is my classroom library from last year. The organization itself will stay the same, but I am moving into a new, bigger classroom (it used to be a kindergarten classroom) and getting some new furniture, so the look will be a bit different. Once I get it all set up in August I will share some new pictures!

My principal has given me permission to buy three shelving units for my new classroom, so I'll be getting these three IKEA Kallax shelves to hold most of my library. (I might end up getting another one or two of the smaller ones to fit all my book bins.)

Here's what my classroom library area looked like last year. Cozy carpet with pillows, small table with stools, basket of holiday/theme books. My organization system came from Ladybug's Teacher Files. I found her blog when I first started teaching first grade. I loved her organization and colour-coding. It was just amazing. I used her idea of numbering the baskets of books. (She mentions that she heard about that idea from the Daily 5 book.)

My books are organized by topics, series, and authors. I have about 50 different baskets of books. I used the Sterilite Ultra Medium Baskets. I got them from Canadian Tire, but you can find them on Amazon too. I've had them for six years now and they are still going strong. They are super durable and a perfect size.

Each of my labels has a title, a picture, and a number. The title tells what series/author/topic is in the basket, the picture corresponds to it, and the number just orders my baskets. Each book has a matching sticker with the number of the basket and the picture that matches the basket. So if students have an Elephant & Piggie book like the one below, they can look for the basket with the matching pigeon image or they can look in order for the number 32. The numbers help, plus it builds a bit of number sense too while they are putting their books away! "This is 32... it's not at the beginning and it's before 50... it's sort of in the middle!" 

The labels actually wrap around the spine of the book and the back of the labels have my class, my name, and the reading level. (Half my books still have my maiden name on it. lol. Oh well! That's what I get for changing my name. But Ross is soooooo much easier to spell and say. Haha!) The reading level is more just info for me--I don't make the students choose based on their levels. They have free range in choosing the books they wish to read. Interest + Choice = Engagement. 

I do have a leveled section that I use for home reading. Students take a book home from here each night (I tell them what letter to choose from), they read it and record it in a log, and then change the book the next day. This is not my favourite system--I dislike students knowing their "level" and having to choose from there, but I haven't quite figured another way to handle that yet... Any thoughts on home reading?

Each student has a book box where they keep their poetry folder, sight word practice, and independent reading books. I let them keep five books from the classroom library in here. They may exchange them at any time. I don't do "shopping days". Some kids will keep a book forever, others may change their books ten times a day. As long as they are reading, it doesn't bother me in the least.

I have a large collection of character stuffies (even more that aren't on display here...). Last year they were on a high shelf (I was in an old Science lab), but next year I will display them on top of the tall IKEA shelf.

I have always wanted a couch in my classroom library area and ever since I saw Schoolgirl Style's room I knew I wanted the IKEA Klippan. It's the perfect shape and I love how low it is. Perfect for firsties. Plus bonus the cover is removable so I can just throw it in the wash anytime I need. I kept my eyes open on Kijiji and found one for a decent price. My awesome parents even picked it up for me and delivered it to my house. So now it is just sitting in my garage until I can move it to school in a few weeks! Woo hoo!

Then I found this Poang Children's Chair in the clearance section for 30% off in great condition, so I got it for my reading corner too. (Yes, my classroom is like 90% IKEA. So what? lol)

As much as I don't want my time at home to be over, I am soooo excited to go and set up my new classroom! :) Don't forget to stop by Teacher by the Beach for more library organization ideas!

LibraryThing

Hey all! Sorry I have been absent from the blogging world for a bit! It has been a hectic first week back. I lost a student, gained a student, reviewed our daily routine and classroom rules over and over, got a surprise observation from my principal, started a Jan Brett author study, started a winter and hibernation theme, began new math stations... woo! It has been busy. But then, the sky opened this morning... a blizzard came... and we had a snow day today!! Love it. On a Friday no less! :) This doesn't happen very often, so we thank our lucky stars when it does.

I hope to be back to share some things we have been doing at school soon, but I keep forgetting to take pictures of anything. Maybe next week! For now I just wanted to share a website that I use to keep track of all of my books. I have many weaknesses when it comes to books... I must own all of them. I must keep them organized. And I can never remember if I already had that book.... so I buy it just in case! You can't pass up a good deal and a cute book!

So that's why I needed to find some way to keep track of all my books. I used to keep an excel file, but then I would have to keep it on a flash drive and could only access it on a computer. Then I tried out a few of the different apps available on iPad for keeping track of books, but I didn't really like any of them. The ones that "scanned" the barcode, only had the information for about one out of ten books I tried, so I had to manually input the information anyways. So when I came across the website, LibraryThing, I knew this was going to be the one for me. It would be cool if there was an app for it, but they haven't created one yet... But the good thing is it's just online, so I can access it on my iPhone or iPad, or on my home computer or school computer. Perfect!

LibraryThing has two account choices. A free account is good for up to 200 books. If you have more than that (like me... I'm not telling you the exact number... but it's a lot...) you can upgrade to a paid account for $10 a year or $25 for a lifetime. I went for the lifetime membership because I am planning on teaching for a longtime, so I can just keep my book list up to date for as long as I want. You can also choose to make your account private, so no one can access your book list.

The great thing about LibraryThing is that when you are putting in information about your books it has so many different categories that you add all the information you want. You can customize which categories you want to display (title, author, reviews, pages, etc.). Here is what the first page of my library looks like:

The categories that I have across the top are title, author, comments, tags, from where?, and copies. In the "comments" column I like to keep track of the guided reading level. You can figure out levels from Scholastic Book Wizard or AR Book Finder. In the "tags" column, I just input any descriptions of the book that I want. I can use this for searching for books. For example, Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes is tagged as Pete the Cat, Music, Cats, and School. So if I am looking for books with cats or about school, it will show Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes. I try and list as many categories as I can so when I am looking for books to go with my theme, it will give me the most possibilities! When I click the tags button on the top of the page, it shows all my tags and I can search by clicking any of them.

In the "from where?" column I like to put were the book is located. This makes it easy if I am looking for a certain book. I have my theme books, author books, and series books in tubs in my classroom library and my holiday books in monthly tubs that I keep in storage. You can read more about that {here}.  The last colunm is for "copies". I can keep track of how many copies of books I have, which is good for guided reading sets or buddy reading doubles. It's also good for me to know that I don't need a third copy of Pete the Cat. As much as I want it.

Also, another thing I love is the search function! You can search your own library. You can type in a title, author, or tag and it will find it for you! I use this a lot when I'm at a book store and I'm not sure if I own the book or not. I just pull out my iPhone, search for that specific Elephant & Piggie book, and then know if I do or do not have that one. Then I either put it back or add it to the pile!

Now, does this make me sound a little OCD crazy about books? I know my mom will say no, but that's because she has the same problem as me. I inherited it from her ;) Do you have a system of keeping your books orgazined? Does anyone else use LibraryThing? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Have a great weekend all! I hope you all stayed as warm and toasty as I did on this lovely snow day!

Rainbow Classroom Labels

Ok, it is my birthday weekend and I am going to be busy, busy! But before I'm off camping and visiting with family, I wanted to quickly post about my Rainbow Classroom Labels. I wanted labels for my levelled library tubs and my student book boxes. I am using the six rainbow colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) with Pete the Cat and polka dots thrown in for my classroom theme this year.

Here are my levelled library tubs, just waiting to be filled with classroom books!

This is the first year I am going to be assigning numbers to my students. I figure it saves me having to relabel everything with new names every year. I can reuse my beautiful year after year, until I change my colour scheme ;) These are my number labels for my students book bins... Just waiting for the lovely neon bins to arrive from Really Good Stuff!

I just loved the polka dots and the way these turned out, that I made some matching round labels. I'm going to use these to number various things, such as my new, in-the-making, math toolboxes! If you have not checked out Renee's new blog, The Reading Corner, you need to go there right now! She has some *AMAZING* Daily 5 math ideas. I may be a little biased, seeing as she is a fellow Manitoban teacher and there are very few of us, but I do love her ideas! These math toolboxes are one of her great ideas. Each student has a bag that has a variety of math manipulatives they would need for games, individual work, or whole group lessons. They just bring their whole bag with them when they are off to work! I am going to attach these circle number labels to each toolbox, so each student is responsible for the contents of their toolbox.

These rainbow labels can be used for a variety of things: lockers, cubbies, desks, math tubs, supply bins, reading bags--you name it! Click the picture to check it out at TpT. In this pack, you will get:

*square labels, 1-30

*square labels, A-Z

*blank square labels

*round labels, 1-30

*round labels, A-Z

*blank round labels

Welcome to the Garden!

I am so in love with my new classroom. There is so much storage. There is a whole row of windows that let in tons of light. I think it is going to be a great place for my class to learn and have fun in!

This is my ADORABLE (if I do say so myself) bulletin board outside my room. Names on the bugs have been smudged for safety reasons.

Here is a view of my room from the door. I'm still missing a few student desks and my desk nameplates haven't arrived in the mail yet, but other than that the room is almost ready to go!

To the right of the door is these four big doors that hide our cubbies and jacket hooks. Love that I don't have to see all that mess! Up top is our birthday bulletin board.

Inside the doors is storage for the kids AND more storage for me. Love it!

On one of the doors is "Our 5 Bees Promise". When I saw this idea on First Grader... at Last I knew it would fit well with my classroom theme. The bees are SOOOO cute. I also love her Best "Beehaviour" Catalogue for some great rewards to go with it. I might make one of those later on this year.

On another one of the doors is our "Garden of Good Manners". This mini bulletin board was from Scholar's Choice (Canadian store... sorry!)

In the corner is my art supply closet. I am a bit of an organization freak. I love love LOVE labels. I spent a good part of my summer making labels for everything. I really like how they all turned out.

At the back of my room, I have one small bulletin board and three large ones over top of the windows. The small one has our "Spotlight Author" of the month. In September we are starting with Kevin Henkes. Can't wait to share his books with my little ones.

Next will be our Daily 5 board where I will keep our anchor charts up all year. I am so excited to fully try out the Daily 5 this year. Last year I tried some of it out, along with Reader's and Writer's Workshop, with my fourth graders. This will be a new experience for me! (Along with many others this year!)

Our first theme is going to be "All About Me". I think we are going to do some Me Gylphs to hang on the wall here. More details to come!

And the third bulletin board on that wall is the "Word Garden". I made the snails and leaves with my cricut (love that machine) and the printed out my own word wall cards. So far I put up number words, shapes and colours. We will also be putting up our names and the Grade 1 Dolch sight words as we learn them.

*Freebie Alert* If you're interested in the word wall cards (numbers, colours, shapes, Dolch words, and blank template) click here!

Underneath the windows are short shelving units which I am using to house my classroom library. I have a leveled section and a theme/series/author section. I was totally inspired by the awesome Kristen over at Ladybug's Teacher Files. I used her idea of putting a sticker on the cover of the book that matches the label on the basket. These stickers wrap around the spine of the book and on the back they have my name, grade, and the level of the book. Check out her blog to see how she sets up her library! Truly inspiring. This year she made cute round labels for her baskets!

I had these rainbow magazine holders already, so I thought they would make good book boxes. Hopefully they last the year and next year I can invest in some good plastic ones from Really Good Stuff.

Here is our math calendar wall and carpet area.

Next is our writing centre. Another idea stolen from an amazing blog. This tweet was inspired by Leslie Ann over at Life in First Grade. I found her tweet idea here.

Here is a view of the front of the room. I got a projector installed over the summer. No SMARTBoard yet, but maybe one day!

And moving right along, is the "What's the buzz?" bulletin board. This has our daily schedule posted. Loved Mrs. Carroll's schedule cards over at The First Grade Parade. This is one of my all time favourite blogs. Love her ideas! I used hers and made a few more of mine to fit my needs. Also on this board is our Daily 5 schedule and the Bug of the Day (my helper).

And lastly, right beside the door is our "How do we get home?" pocket chart and "Snail Mail" mailboxes. I also have my ring of Line Up Songs which were inspired again by First Grader... at Last.

And that concludes the tour! Thanks for stopping by. I realize this post is waaaaaaaaaay too long, but there was just too much to share! :)