Simple Classroom Library Setup

When I first started teaching, I thought my classroom library had to be organized by subject, topic, genre, and leveled on top of that. So I tried my best to separate and label each book with where it should go. I was so proud of my work. I had all of the tubs filled and labeled and I just knew that my first class of kiddos was going to love and respect it just as much as I did.

Wrong. Not only did books get out wherever and however a kid put them back, but it was hard for kids to find the specific tub. Even with Guided Reading Levels marked on the books, kids weren't matching the letter on the book to the letter in the tub. I do have to be upfront and honest, as a first year teacher, this wasn't just because my classroom library was too complicated. It was also because it was one of the things that I did not spend enough time teaching at the beginning of the year.

My second year, I had to move classrooms, which had me resetting up my library. Again by genre, or popular titles and still by guided reading level. I taught the expectations slightly better, but still same thing. In my third year I moved districts and grades and I just ended up throwing them in tubs. Again, they got put wherever they wanted to put them back at and a lot of really good titles were getting buried in the process.

Last year I knew I needed something different. So I went out and bought a bunch of dot stickers from Lakeshore. They had an entire aisle dedicated to these stickers because they are the ones that can be used for behavior charts. Each tub and each book in that tub had a corresponding sticker. My librarians could now be ANYONE in the class. Non-readers could be librarians because they had to match the sticker to the book. All students were capable of finding where their books needed to be returned to. This was the system that I needed. It is simple and can almost manage itself. In the pictures you will see that I still have written labels on the tun as a general rule (i.e. non-fiction texts, picture books, chapter books, etc.) but this is more to guide kids to books that they are interested in and less about organizing the library.

I hope that this system can work for you too. What tips and tricks do you use for your classroom library?

Beginning of the Year

Am I the only one who dreads the chaos of the beginning of the year? Every year gets a little less hectic but the need to fill time with meaningful and important routine building activities can be so hard to plan for. This year I got a head start and made sure to plan for the group of kids that I know is coming. This year's group has some really challenging behaviors and I want to be sure that I really nail down routines while introducing mindfulness and light activities. Here is a breakdown of what my first day back is going to look like:

Morning meeting: I will have us share our names and out favorite thing about school (I know that a few might say, "Nothing." In that case, I will say, "Oh, how sad," and move on. No point in torturing them or myself for a response.) We will play a quick game and then I will move right into expectations in school.

In a phenomenal school, I would... anchor chart: This is where kids will talk about how a phenomenal school would look, feel, and sound. See the picture for an idea of what this looks like.  I am using this chart to establish expectations in ALL areas of our day. So when I go to talk about what our expectations of a phenomenal school are, I will have them look at the chart an then we will create what we will do during an activity to make sure we are creating our phenomenal school environment.

Read Aloud Expectations: Using the chart we created, I will talk about a very special time in our class, called "Read-Aloud" time when I share my very favorite books with them. I will ask how we might act or behave during read-aloud if we are in a phenomenal school and chart their answers. I will then do a quick read aloud and be sure to praise, praise, praise those who are following the expectations. Then I will close with a recap of how we did.

Recess: Those first few days absolutely need extra recess. But before we leave, I will be doing the same thing that we did during read aloud with recess expectations.

Mindfulness Activity: We will reinforce and practice read aloud expectations during the next activity when I read Ishi. It is a story about a mindful rock. It is such a sweet story and it leant itself well to teaching expectations with our classroom sharpies. Each kid will have a rock and will give it a smiley face on one side and a frowning face on the other. This is the mindfulness portion of the activity.

Lunch expectations and lunch!

Math manipulatives Exploration: Stations will be set up and students will sketch the manipulative and make guesses about what it is used for.

Art: Kids will be making a small canvas painting with their name on it. They will paint it with our class watercolors and I will glue a heavy duty magnet on the back. This will be used for attendance every morning.

End of Day routine: I have a classroom manual, we will read this together and practice all aspects of my end of day routine except for classroom jobs and charging computers. They will, however, learn to do a 1-minute desk tidy, a 60-second floor clean, a 15 second furniture fix, how to check their mailbox and take out their planners (another post is coming on this because my planner is a bit different than other classrooms).

Then we will go to specials. Let me know if you have any questions. You will notice that I did not teach bathroom routines explicitly today. That is because I have a bathroom in the classroom and I am only going to mention protocol for the first week. After the first week, I have super specific bathroom rules. I've got to break them in slowly. Enjoy the new school year!