Building a classroom library is one of the most time consuming back to school activities. Spending time up front will help your students keep the books organized throughout the year. Notice I said your students! I only spent 20 minutes at the end of the year organizing my library. My students were able to keep it organized on their own this year. Deciding where to put the library, finding books, organizing the books, creating systems, and keeping them in the correct places all takes time.
Decide on a Location
Deciding where to put your library is essential. It will help you decide what other materials you will need when designing. Before I went self-contained, other people in my building used their back counter over the lockers to store part of their classroom library. I knew that this would not work for me because I am not too fond of clutter on that counter. We have a corner of the room where there are three shelves built into the wall. I had kept science books and other random things there. Honestly, it had become a dumping ground for random items. I knew that I wanted to use this corner for my library.
After deciding on the location, I had to decide on shelving for my library. I knew that the three shelves and counter would not be enough for a library. I wanted to make a reading nook for my students. This area is by my door. I wanted to make a defined entry into my classroom, so an open shelving unit worked well. I did a lot of research on different types of shelves. Since both sides of the bookcase are exposed, I decided on this shelving unit from IKEA. If you are going to have the bookshelf against the wall, here are some excellent options from Amazon (One, two, three). I would ask around your building to see if anyone has shelves they don’t need or want anymore before you purchase some!
Finding Books
Since I was going from teaching math and science to being self-contained, I was not given many books from my school. There were only two classroom libraries, and I was going to be teacher number three.
I started sending home Scholastic Book orders to my homeroom before I even knew I would be teaching language arts. Scholastic’s teacher program is a fantastic way to build a classroom library. The points gained from students purchasing books allow you to get packs and a series of books for free! If you are not signed up for Scholastic, you need to run over now.
I also sent an email home to my families at the end of the year. Many people clean out their children’s rooms before summertime and want to purge anything not being used. I asked for books that were not needed anymore. These donated books were an excellent way to build my library with grade level books that the students had “outgrown” over the year.
Facebook Market Place and eBay were other close friends of mine while I was building my library. I was able to find many bundles of books for discounted prices. Shipping for books falls under USPS Media Mail and is not very expensive.
The last way that helped me grow my library was through an old teacher of mine from my hometown. She was the librarian for our elementary school and was retiring. She still had a bunch of her books that she gave me. Checking with other teachers who are retiring or changing careers is a great way to gain books. The library was also going through and culling their books. She gave me a TON of discarded books to add to my classroom library. Check with local libraries to see if there are getting rid of books.
Organizing Books
Once you have your books, you need to decide how you want to hold them. First, check with your school and district to see what the expectation is for classroom libraries. We are expected to have most of our libraries be sorted by genre with some leveled books. It is essential for your library to be easy to use. You and your students should be able to find books easily.
When I started to sort books, I went through all of the books that I had collected. I began to put them into piles based on genre or series. Some of my genres needed to be broken down into more subtopics.
I decided that I wanted to break my chapter books down into specific genres. In 3rd grade, we focus on reading stamina. I do, however, have picture books which are a big hit for a little break. The picture books are broken down into fiction, non-fiction, math, science, and historical fiction.
Keeping the Books Organized and Neat
Going through all of your books is time-consuming. It is now time to put procedures in place to allow your students to take over keeping the classroom library organized. Finding the right book bin or containers for your library is important. I used large baskets I found at the Dollar Tree for my picture books. I used small and mini black milk crates from Walmart for my chapter books (if you can’t find them at Walmart, grab them here). I decided to do with black and white because I knew I would be able to find matching bins year after year if they broke or I needed more. I love all the colors but have found it hard to find the same colors from year to year.
Labeling the book container as well as the book allowed my students to put the books back into the right location. I printed my labels on card stock and laminated them. I love using my Amazon Basics laminator. Three years and still going strong! I cut all of the tags out and put a piece of twine on them to add a rustic label feel. As I put the library together, I hot glued the labels to my bins.
To make sure my student knew where the books went, I printed the labels onto Avery Labels to put on each book. I believe this was a MAJOR reason my library stayed organized and functional throughout the year.
Where to Find Labels
These labels are available in my TpT store. They come with 110+ premade labels and editable PDF embedded with the fonts to make any other labels you need.
Remember, put the time in before to save yourself a lot of work throughout the year! I put all my books away for the summer and only had to spend 20 minutes putting books back into the correct places (I didn’t have to do any work throughout the year!).
