Organizing a Classroom Library

No matter what grade I’ve taught, or how many years I’ve taught, organizing a classroom library is a topic that comes up A LOT.

Our classroom library is really the heart of our classroom. It takes up a big chunk of space, and we gather near it everyday for morning meeting, mini-lessons, and read alouds.

Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

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Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

Important Notes

  • I have LOTS of books. My principal jokes that if something ever happened to our school library, we’d be just fine because we have mine.
  • Yes, the books have been mostly purchased with my own money.
  • No, I didn’t start teaching with a ton of books.
  • Don’t think you need to buy a billion books when you first start teaching, especially full price books. Instead,
    • Go to garage sales (all tell people you’re a teacher — most people tend to give a good deal when you plead your case)
    • Ask family members to keep their eyes open for garage sales, or in online community groups
    • Search your area for “Friends of the Library” book sales
    • Ask parents/friends/family members for gently used books
    • Use Scholastic Book Clubs
      • Give students 5-10 minutes to look through the flyers in class and make a wish list
      • Even if only 1 family orders, the points add up
Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

Organizing a Classroom Library

  • should fit the needs of the students and the teacher
  • takes time (and maybe some money)
  • requires patience and flexibility
  • can evolve over time
Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

What I’ve Tried Over the Past 9 Years:

  • leveled (AR and guided reading)
  • genres/authors
  • random, hot mess

I personally didn’t like having my books leveled by AR level. In fact, that’s what I was trying to do my very first year teaching, but it was actually a random, hot mess.

Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

My students couldn’t find anything, and neither could I. I wasn’t able to direct them toward books they might enjoy, or books to help them grow as a reader.

Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

I finally felt comfortable with my classroom library somewhere during my third year teaching. It was small, it was simple, but it worked.

I’ve used that same idea for organizing a classroom library ever since.

Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

Step 1: Sort Your Books

  • Obviously, you have to decide how to sort your books first. But after that, it’s a big sorting party.
  • My recommendation:
    • Start with fiction/non-fiction
    • Fiction
      • Use levels (I like Fountas & Pinnell)
      • Topics
      • Series
      • Authors
    • Non-Fiction
      • Topics
      • Themes
Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

Step 2: Decide on Your Categories

  • Fiction books tend to sort themselves, especially if you’re going by series and/or levels
  • Non-Fiction
    • Informational book topics and/or themes depend on the books you have in your classroom library.
    • For example, if you have lots of shark books, you might want a container specifically for sharks.
    • However, if you only have two shark books, I personally wouldn’t waste the space for sharks to have it’s own special place.
Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

Step 3: Label it All

For the first 8 years of my teaching career, I labeled just the book baskets, and books that were sorted by level, and quite frankly, everything was fine.

Levels I included (just based on my experience):

  • First grade had guided reading levels A – M.
  • Second grade had guided reading levels E – S.
  • Fourth grade had guided reading levels J – V.

Sure, the baskets got a little messy at times, but it wasn’t a huge deal.

Year 9, however, was the year everything changed.

Ok, that’s dramatic.

But, I did change things a bit.

Year 9 was the year when I completely ditched a leveled classroom library, and went completely to themes/genres/topics/authors/series — honestly, I’m sad I didn’t do it sooner.

In addition to ditching the levels, I also took organization to the next level.

Because there weren’t leveled baskets, I knew I needed to help my students know where to put books back.

Each book basket gets a topic label, like “Dragon Masters” or “Iris and Walter” AND a coordinating number.

For books that don’t have a specific category or for those that I don’t have enough of the series, they just go in either a picture book basket, or chapter book basket, as seen above.

Books then get a sticker with their book basket’s number.

Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.
Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.
Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels and a printable checklist to organize your classroom library.

I used these stickers from Amazon that I had left over from another project.

There wasn’t a need for me to color-code the inside dots, but you could totally take it a step further and color code the stickers if you wanted to.

What Supplies Did You Use?

 

EDitable classroom library labels 

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Step by step instructions for organizing a classroom library. Download free labels to organize your classroom library.

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