Class Library

Every elementary classroom I've been in, including mine, has a class library. Teachers spend their own money, scholastic points, grant money, donations, etc. building and replenishing their classroom libraries.  In the summer of 2010 I took a children's literature class to continue to be a 'highly qualified teacher'.  As part of the course we had to read "The Book Whisperer" and I feel in love with this author's philosophies.

One chapter in the book talks about setting up a classroom library by genres rather than levels in order to not detour readers from attempting difficult books.  In July I worked around the janitors cleaning my room and reorganized my class library by fiction, non-fiction, fairy tales, fables, etc.  I was thrilled about how precise I had placed my books in my classroom for my students to read.  I eagerly directed students to choose different books and they were reading and looking, looking and reading many, many books.  

In the first few weeks of the 2010 school year I found myself reorganizing the genres as if I were a maticulous librarian.  Then, I became frustrated when my kids couldn't out the books back in a genre that I had labeled accordingly.  I was driving myself, and my students, insane over how to catalog my class library.  

Frustrated, I talked to a fellow teacher who had also read "The Book Whisperer" and was having the same dilema with her class library.  We arrived at the same conclusion, the first and second grade kids developmentally cannot make those generalizations.  The advanced readers were sometimes able to remember, but not everyone consistently. 

I spent every day after school reorganizing my books by leveled readers, for my sanity and so the students could easily grab and organize the books that I have.  For the past few years, this has been working quite well. Here's a peek at what it looks like today:

I have my "Accelerated Reader" books as 'blue' for 1st grade level, 'red' for 2nd grade level, and 'green' for 3rd grade level.  They have the "Accelerated Reader" label on it's spine to help kids.  They are in bins that I purchased at Wal-mart for $3. a bin in the kitchen aisle.  

We use these books during our "Read To Test" time.  This is the only time when I encourage kids to choose a specific leveled reader so they do not become too frustrated too quickly.

I also have books labeled "Read For Fun".  These books do not have an "Accelerated Reading Test" tied to it and they are not organized by level in my class library.

If you'd like to download these leveled readers bin labels, click here at TpT or here for Teachers Notebook.