How do you organize your books?

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I'd like to welcome and thank Fern for being today's guest blogger! I absolutely love her blog and ideas! I hope that you'll visit her blog and maybe even become a follower :)

I'm Fern Smith, my school's Teacher of the Year and 3rd Grade Team Leader.
I ♥love♥ followers if you would like to come check out my blog!


My Read Alouds
Organized By Month & Then By "Left Over"Authors
Organization is the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher!
It is the difference between a great teacher and an excellent teacher
because you are not wasting your time & energy looking for things!
Example ~ Judy Blume Section
Example ~ Easter Read Alouds & Listening Center
Here is how I store my Read Alouds & I hope my system helps you too!
Some people have great big closets and/or lots of shelves. I am NOT one of those lucky teachers! I have a wonderful portable here in Florida & I'm just so happy to have a job in my hometown that NOTHING about my portable bothers me!When I first started teaching I wasted so much time trying to find my own personal books in the classroom library. I wanted the students to have access to ALL my books, but then I would waste so much time looking for "The Velveteen Rabbit" when Easter was approaching! Some years I would have to waste more time going to the Public library when the book I wanted to read was missing from my classroom!  

I have wised up with age! 
My classroom library DOES NOT NEED each book I own & there is nothing wrong with keeping my Read Alouds separate from the rest of the books. My pictures do not show that many books because I've "LEFT" teaching three times {never say never} and every time I would leave I would have a massive classroom garage sale! Duh!!! I left teaching twice to stay at home when each child was born to try the Stay~At~Home~Mom~Thing & then the third time was when we moved back to Florida from Texas. I followed my long-term dream to be a Real Estate Agent!

OK~Stop Laughing!
I took the classes, passed the tests and went on interviews. Prayed to God for the agency across the street to hire me & He told me to go back to teaching! No joke! The very next day at 8:00am I was sitting in my daughter's orthodontist office & got a phone call about returning to teaching in my very desired hometown district! Never mess with God's Plan ;) Anyhooooo, back to the books!

Steps:
  • Label your folders, one for each month & one for each holiday.
  • Label your folders, one for each author you like or that you "collect" in your grade level.
  • Organize them by school year, August to July. If there is a certain author that you like during a certain month, put their folder behind that month. For example: I adore Tedd Arnold and I read his Huggly series & his Parts series at the beginning of the year. They are slap-stick funny and it helps to build a relationship between me, the students and how books can be read JUST FOR PLEASURE! :)
  • Put the rest of your authors behind July in alphabetical order.
Now when you are preparing for Thanksgiving, BAM! just pull out all of your books. I like to keep them in a basket by my "Teacher's Reading Chair" at the front of my gathering area and I also let the boys and girls read them, I just "train" them to put them back into the basket. Another nice feature about keeping your seasonal books together is when you start to get more than one copy of a book, the students can EEKK {Elbow, Elbow, Knee, Knee partner reading from the Daily Five} read with them. This way wastes very little student time while that try to look for the matching books! :)

Now that it is summer, and you might have some extra time, I hope this helps! Enjoy! :)


 Thanks again Fern! What great organizational ideas :)
Don't forget to stop by tomorrow for Katie from Dirty Hand and Lesson Plans



Ummm... I hope you didn't forget that I love your love aka comments!!
                                                    

5 comments

Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas said...

Thank you for having me, I have enjoyed this week and can't wait for tomorrow's post from Katie!
~Fern
Fern Smith’s Classroom Ideas!

Unknown said...

Thank you so much Fern! I am being moved to a portable building (from my beautiful big classroom - but that is a story for another day) and was wondering how I was going to organize my books with little to no storage! You have saved me! :)
Cheryl
Crayons and Curls

Unknown said...

Hi Fern and Jessica! I love both of your blogs and am loving your guest blogger week!

Thanks for the great idea Fern!

I'll be back tomorrow for Katie!
Linda
AroundtheKampfire

Cacheymama said...

Hello Jessica,
Speaking of guest posts, I was wondering if you still wanted to do a post for Tutorial Tuesday? I need one for 2 weeks from now on July 3, can you do that day? Let me know, cacheymama@gmail.com. Thanks!
Lori

Sara at school said...

Had to laugh bout the kids not needing every one of your books. I've slowly come to the realization I can save some to share. Like your organization idea.
Sara
Sara-at-school.blogspot.com

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