by Kelley Gangi, Program Director, and Stephanie Maze-Hsu, Senior Staff Developer
A successful classroom library transforms a schoolroom corner into a decadent space encouraging children to explore uncharted genres, browse fresh topics, peruse alien genres, and investigate new authors. Most importantly, a classroom library cultivates sheer delight for reading, talking about books, and scooping up classroom “bestsellers.” So what’s the secret to fabulous classroom library construction? There are as many ideas as there are creative teachers! Epping, Gardner, Longmeadow, Stoneham, West Boylston, Lawrence Public Schools, and Narragansett Regional Schools offer some inspired possibilities.
Turn on the Charm
It’s important to turn up the dazzle dial on your library to appeal to readers in your classroom. Use basket color to designate sections of your library. Print enticing labels with pictures that invite perusal and help when students re-shelve.
It’s important to turn up the dazzle dial on your library to appeal to readers in your classroom. Use basket color to designate sections of your library. Print enticing labels with pictures that invite perusal and help when students re-shelve.
Encourage your students to help organize the library and make handmade labels for book baskets. Create a bookstore feel by genre-tizing areas of your classroom with non-fiction books, themed photographs, and artifacts colonizing one corner and fiction texts, author bios, and student artwork nestled in another nook. Add book posters, comfy seating, and hints for re-shelving throughout these spaces. Attractive stickers affixed to bins and their respective books can help younger readers return books independently.
Celebrate special books and new additions by displaying these face-out on top of shelves across the room or in uniquely shaped baskets, display cases, or cardboard racks as demonstrated in this Longmeadow elementary school library.
Lavish it with Labels
Would you rather grab a book from a bin labeled “Devastating Disasters” or “Non-fiction: Storms?” This Epping Elementary School library tempts readers with creative categories including, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” “Road to the White House,” “Compelling Characters,” “New to True,” (for new books), “Before They were Movies,” “Living a Writer’s Life,” and many more.
Would you rather grab a book from a bin labeled “Devastating Disasters” or “Non-fiction: Storms?” This Epping Elementary School library tempts readers with creative categories including, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” “Road to the White House,” “Compelling Characters,” “New to True,” (for new books), “Before They were Movies,” “Living a Writer’s Life,” and many more.
Break up bins with labels like “Science” into specific categories like “Quakes,” or “Forces that Shape the Earth.” Reserve bins for specific types of animals or behaviors and adorn them with labels to provoke curiosity such as, “The Hunters and the Hunted,” “My, What Big Teeth You Have!,” “Tales of the Tails,” or “Never Fear, Bats are Here!”. For social studies topics, organize collections by period, era, or important events such as, “Pioneers and Westward Expansion,” “Surviving the Seas,” or “Brigades and Battalions.” Combine historical fiction and non-fiction together in epoch bins such as “Middle Ages—Times of Kings and Queens,” “Pioneer Era,” “Civil War” or “A Titanic Time.” Bundle biographies into “An Athlete’s Life,” “Quiet on the Set!,” “Inventors,” or “Famous Children.”
Leave Leveling to a Minimum
Leveling is more important in the early grades, but even there, only about one-third of the books should be in “leveled” baskets. While it is helpful for teachers to know the approximate levels of many books in the library, it’s much easier for children to find engaging books in a bin labeled, “Sea Creatures,” than a bin labeled “J.” Also, children can access more difficult texts if they have schema on the topic or from an author or series with familiar characters, styles, or themes.
Leveling is more important in the early grades, but even there, only about one-third of the books should be in “leveled” baskets. While it is helpful for teachers to know the approximate levels of many books in the library, it’s much easier for children to find engaging books in a bin labeled, “Sea Creatures,” than a bin labeled “J.” Also, children can access more difficult texts if they have schema on the topic or from an author or series with familiar characters, styles, or themes.
If levels are important for guiding readers in your classroom, indicate the text level on the back or inside cover to help students find just-right books within genre, author, and topic bins. Alternatively, consider using color-coded dots to indicate text levels on within a bin. Keep a simple chart for a quick check when conferring or helping students select just-right texts from a variety of bins.
Remember, it’s about finding books each student wants to read. Beyond elementary school, levels won’t help real readers find books in Barnes and Noble or the iBook store. After all, Little House on the Prairie, a Level O text, might be relished by the Level T reader intrigued by the time period or the writer’s craft.
Make it Dynamic
Libraries are always in flux. Withhold some texts and add them later as units of study change, particularly if units of study include Series Books, Poetry, and Informational Text. Maintain some static categories to use every year and save part of your library for the children to organize and label, creating high interest and ownership. Book browsing to sort and organize a classroom library inevitably yields wish lists of book they can’t wait to read!
Libraries are always in flux. Withhold some texts and add them later as units of study change, particularly if units of study include Series Books, Poetry, and Informational Text. Maintain some static categories to use every year and save part of your library for the children to organize and label, creating high interest and ownership. Book browsing to sort and organize a classroom library inevitably yields wish lists of book they can’t wait to read!
As you add books to your library, grow new categories or breathe new life into existing bins. For example, your basket of “Underwater Feasts” maybe burgeoning as you attempt to feed your classroom appetite for nonfiction and marine animal topics. Consider removing the seventeen crocodilia books to create newly hatched bins such as “Crocs and Gators,” or “The Big Green Monster.” Change in your library will breed excitement and anticipation for readers throughout the year.
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