Well my little obsession of a classroom library finally found its permanent home, hooray! I was so excited to finally put all of my preparation and hard work into my very own classroom! Here is a little taste of what I have going so far... of course, things are likely to change by Monday. :)
A cozy reading area for the kiddos. I heard from parents that the pillows were a big hit. ;)
All of my books are leveled. On the outside corner, there is a colored sticker indicating the level. Written on the sticker, I have the specific letter (i.e. a book would have a green sticker with D written on it). I have given all of my children a notecard with their sticker level. So, the children know to only look for books with a "Green E" on it. So far, it has worked well. The kiddos even like to correct me when I give them different level books, hehe. :)
I organized my books into four sections: Nonfiction (red bins), Fiction (blue bins), Chapter Books (tall bookcase in the purple and blue bins), and Favorite Authors/Caldecott (yellow bins).
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| Fiction and Nonfiction |
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| Favorite Author and Caldecotts |
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| Chapter Books |
Each book bin has a label with the category name and a picture. As you can see, I have several "Animal" bins. I leveled categories that had many books (like, "Animals" and "Kids Like You"). For example, the Animals bin with the cat will have books with only levels A-D.
To help children locate books of their level, I placed small stickers on the labels to indicate what levels are in the bin. Children who are on a "Green" sticker level, will find bins with green stickers on it. For some bins which only contain one level, I write the letter on the sticker.
Also, I have begun training "Librarians" to help me in my classroom. Inside each book, I have placed a label which indicates which bin it belongs in. If the children have trouble reading the words, they can simply look at the picture on the label and match it to the bin. I will add pictures of this soon.
Yes, I realize this is a complicated system, but it is working fairly well so far. My main intention is that children are able to find those Just Right books, which are not only on their level but that they have a desire to read. My library still needs a lot of tweaking, but I am learning all the time and taking it day by day. :)
