How I Organize My Classroom Library (and a Back To School Bash Giveaway)

Happy Back To School time, everyone!

I’m exhausted.

That’s all there is to it. I know you are too.

That’s why The Primary Pack is hosting a blog hop with lots of tips and giveaways just for you! This post is full of lots of good things, so make sure you don’t miss anything.
Our hop is a 3…2…1… BACK TO SCHOOL BASH because each member of The Primary Pack will be giving you 3 teacher tips, 2 giveaways (one on each of our blogs and one BIG one on the Primary Pack), and 1 freebie!

To enter our BIG giveaway, you need to head over to THE PRIMARY PACK first! As you “hop” through each of our blogs, you will collect a letter from each of us… 28 total. Those letters spell out a secret code that you need to enter our BIG giveaway! You will use the secret code to enter the rafflecoptor on The Primary Pack at the end of the hop.
You need to collect the letters from us IN ORDER, so please make sure that you start from the beginning of our hop. Click on the button below to head over to THE PRIMARY PACK and start our BACK TO SCHOOL BASH!!

For people that are visual like me and want to skip all the fluff in between the posts, here’s a checklist for you to make sure you grabbed everything you need:

1. Read 3 tips.
2. Find out about the 2 giveaways (1 from me and 1 from The Primary Pack)
3. Grab the freebies.
4. Write down the letter at the bottom of my post.
5. Enter my Rafflecopter.
6. Hop on, friend.

First things first, I want to share 3 tips with you for organizing your classroom library! The best thing I did for my classroom this school year was reorganize my entire classroom library. It was a lofty project, but one that desperately needed to be completed.

Go crazy on the organization. I like to have my library bins match color-wise. I like to add duct tape that matches my classroom theme (my theme is a sweet shoppe so my duct tape is cupcake tape). I feel like the duct tape ties in all my bins together and makes them more unified.

I started the project at my house because I wanted to watch tv and hang out with my dogs while I did it. If you follow me on instagram, then you might remember seeing this picture where I was organizing on a Saturday night:

I know, I’m a wild one.

When organizing, I just pushed some furniture to the side so I could have as much space on the floor as needed. I created some fake labels (writing on scrap paper… So fancy…) and just started shuffling them around on the ground. That way, nothing was set in stone and I didn’t waste ink printing labels I didn’t need. Ain’t nobody got money for that. Don’t waste ink on labels you think you need, but then realize that you don’t have enough books for that label.

My Own Rule Of Thumb: Don’t create a tub for a certain set of books if you only have 5 books. I try to make sure I have at least ten books before I make a bin for a certain set. However, here’s my exception. If I only have 5 Pinkalicious books, but I know I’m going to buy more because I absolutely love Pinkalicious (#truth) so I would make a bin for that. However, if I’m not in a hurry to add to my Splat collection (not true, I love Splat so much), then I wouldn’t make a bin for him. I might just add those books to my Characters We Love bin. That bin is my “leftover” bin for characters that I just don’t have much of, but love anyway.

As you can see here, my doggies were very eager to help out with the organizing process as well:

Here is the single greatest thing I did for my library this school year. I created sticker labels that match my book bin labels. We’ve only been in school 12 days, but I can already see the positive impact this is having on our organizational skills and the tidiness in my classroom. I took a moment to watch my kids as they eagerly book shopped, grabbing books and putting them back IN THE RIGHT BIN! It was the greatest miracle on the whole planet. I have rarely seen a child put a book back IN THE RIGHT BIN when they are shopping. It has totally rocked my world. These labels are printed on Avery 5160 labels and there’s two book bin labels per label, which is 60 per sheet.

I organize my books by genre and AR level. My AR bins are exploding with books so if they fit in a genre bucket, then they go in there.

If you’re an AR school, like mine is, create labels for your books. I learned this fun tip from my teaching partner. On your label, include the book title, AR level, and quiz number. Highlight the quiz number so the kids can easily find it. She also recommended adding some cutesy clipart to the label that matches your classroom. Mine is a piece of candy because my room is the sweet shoppe. Simple tip, but so effective.

Get organized by clicking the picture below!