Labeling Books

 I take a lot of pride in my classroom library.

I have been blessed with several funded {donors choose} projects which have added new books to my classroom.  I've also scoured gift shops, spent a lot of money at Scholastic, and raided my own childhood book collection.  I want my students to have a cozy, literature-rich classroom.

I did have to do some shuffling of books. I looked through my library and removed any books that might not have third grade appropriate content (boy/girl relationships, middle school issues, etc).  Those books are living in my garage.

We use AR testing as part of our Reading Ranger program, so {ar bookfind} has been my best friend.  It's a free website that lets you look up the book level, quiz number, and summary of over one hundred thousand different books.

I record this AR information on sticky labels that I put on the inside cover of my books.

With Reading Rangers, we also have books color coded by level.  These levels are grouped together and we all use the school's assigned dots.  Luckily our school provides the dots for us:

I also have my library organized by grouping similar books together. While I respect the Reading Rangers program (even though it's not perfect because nothing is), I feel it's my job to create real readers.

When I go to the library, I don't go in looking for a 4.1 level fiction book that's worth 2 points.  I might go in wanting a book on animals.  

So that's how my library is organized: bins with themes.  Inside there are books with a wide range of levels to best meet the needs of all my readers.  To help my students remember where the books go, I put sticky labels on the outside of the books that match the book tubs:

I've had conversations with other teachers who love to tell me that my organization system is wrong.  It's not wrong, it's just not what they're doing.  

One of the benefits of working at home means I can do a few books on commercial breaks.  One of the unintended consequences of working from home is help:

I've had a productive week labeling books and these beauties are ready to get into the hands of my students:

Happy reading! Show me your class libraries!