Guide to Classroom Library Organization

If you are an elementary teacher with lots of books you need to organize, this post will help you organize logically. This system allows for growth without a need for complete reorganization as your collection grows. I will take you through each step of the process. I suggest organizing by topic rather than by level. I base this suggestion on advice from leading experts in literacy.

Your library is one of the most important features of your classroom. We spend lots of money collecting wonderful books, so it’s important to have a good organizational system in place for our students and for ourselves. A good organizational system will help make your books more usable.

I've been asked by several colleagues for advice on organizing their classroom library, and I've seen lots of questions about it online. When I started thinking about how I actually did it, I was pretty surprised. 

Classroom libraries are always growing. It’s  best to have an organizational system that allows for growth. I used my knowledge of children’s literature, elementary curriculum, and teacher preferences to design this system of organization.

I started out by creating a concept map. This is how my mind works. 

Click here to get a better view!

See why I was surprised? It looks pretty overwhelming. My goal is that it will all makes sense by the end of the post! Don't worry, you won't actually have all those categories.

My rule of thumb is to have between 20-50 books in a category. I store them in baskets and crates. Since I have such a large volume of books, I aligned them to the 6 week themes in my reading curriculum. I rotate my books every 6 weeks. If there’s an extremely popular category (like Dr. Suess) it will stay out longer. I assign a number to each category; then I put a sticker on every book with the category number. By clearly labeling the books, I make sure it’s easy to replace them. I can easily give this task to any student with confidence. It took me forever, but I’m so glad it’s done!

I also recommend getting a stamp with your name on it from an office supply store.

With my system, the seasonal category trumps all others. I use this rule when sorting all my other files as well (computer, Pinterest, centers, etc).

One thing you will have to decide is how to classify books about all the seasons I put these with my science books, but I could see the logic of putting them here. I rotate these books according to the season. I break down some of my seasons into smaller categories.

I base my decisions on when each season begins. This is important to know because some holidays are somewhat between seasons. For example, I categorize St. Patrick’s Day as a spring holiday. I put my apple books with fall. You will need to make decisions about this and stick with it. 

If you don't have many of these, just call them "seasonal," otherwise, make a category for each season. Continue breaking the categories into more specific groups until they are manageable. 

Concept map pictures can be found in this Google Doc.

Most reading experts advise organizing books by topic rather than by level. My system is topic based, but it does allow for a small section of loosely leveled books. Primary teachers often have a collection of very simple books for students to read independently. These books have strong picture support, patterns, short sentences, or decodable text. It makes sense to keep these together. This is supported by the 2 Sisters (developers of CAFE and Daily 5, see the blog post and video listed below). Primary teachers may also have some students reading chapter books with no picture support. Since these texts aren’t accessible to most of my students, and I don’t have many of them, I keep them separate.

I have debated about what to call my easy readers. One of my colleagues told me she calls her books “hard,” “harder,” and “hardest.” She talked about all kids wanting to think they are reading hard books. I used this method for a while, but too many of my students were intimidated by the word hard, so now I have an “easy” basket.

Regardless of how you choose to label any books you want to level, experts advise organizing the majority of your classroom library by topic.

Fountas and Pinnell (see page 14) 

The 2 Sisters 

Donalyn Miller 

Dr. Joanne Meier 

Most teachers develop collections of authors and characters they and their students love. I have a basket for favorite authors and a basket for favorite characters. I also added one for teacher favorites this year because I just wanted them to be accessible all the time. I didn’t want to have to dig at all. If I have a sizeable collection, I separate that author/character to their own category. 

I use the basic subjects of school to help me determine my big categories. I do not strictly sort books by fiction and non-fiction, but I did design my concept map this way because I thought it was helpful. If you have a very small library, you might want to be clear about fiction and non-fiction, but with a large library, I like to be a little more relaxed. I look at the content of the book to decide where to place it. If a book has a dog in it, but the book is more about being a friend than being a dog, I would put it in the “friends” category. If a book is about a pet dog that goes on a fictional adventure, I’d probably put it in the dogs category.

If I am teaching about fire safety, it is convenient to have Daisy the Fire Cow in the same location as a book about what it is like to be a fire fighter. This sets me up to discuss the differences between fiction and non-fiction, and it makes it easy to find books for compare/contrast lessons.

I suggest beginning with these categories: science, social studies, health, language arts, math, fiction

Science: the first way I divide science is living vs. non-living. Chances are you will want to do this right at the beginning. One of the trickiest areas of sorting is where to put books about habitats. Generally, they would go in science under living things.

Concept map pictures can be found in this Google Doc.

Social Studies: This is a very broad area. Books about maps, landforms, people, sports, arts, communities, and history all go here.

Concept map pictures can be found in this Google Doc.

Health: I put the topics covered by elementary health curriculum here: safety, mental health, the body, food, and social skills.

Language Arts: ABC books, books about being a writer, books to help you teach about language go here. This is also where I would put books I like to use as mentor texts. It just makes it easier.

Concept map pictures can be found in this Google Doc.

Math: These are easy to identify for the most part. Remember the point here is for you to be able to find and use books. If there’s a book you like to use in association with a math lesson, it should go here.

Concept map pictures can be found in this Google Doc.

Fiction: this will be your largest category. I put songs and poetry here, they will probably be sorted out later. Honestly, I try to put books in other places if I can. For example, a book like Tacky would go in with my social skills or favorite authors section rather than my fiction section. Fiction is harder to sort, so if a book fits somewhere else, I put it there!

Concept map pictures can be found in this Google Doc.

I think fiction is hard to sort! The obvious method would be to sort by genre, but then I end up with really large sections of fantasy and realistic fiction. Additionally, I'm not quite sure what to  do with stories that would be realistic except that they are about a family of otters.  The big categories I decided on are People Stories, Animal Stories, Fantasy, Rhythm and Rhyme, Humor, Folktales, School, Movies and TV. Most of these categories can be broken down further. Take a look at the outline in my downloadable guide.

If you followed this procedure, you have your major categories established. The number of books in each category will vary based on the size of your books and the size of your container. For optimal use, you want students to be able to flip through the books easily; I think 20-50 books is a good size. For more detailed listing of the sub-categories, get this outline (and concept map sections). 

 I tried to make sure I had lots of subcategories for each major category. I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to use all the categories I include in my concept map, but teachers tend to acquire large collections of books related to the topics they teach.







This year I'm adding two categories: new books and book hospital. When I get new books mid-year, it's hard to find time to categorize and label them. I think a new books box will get them into circulation faster. Hopefully giving the students a book hospital will prevent them from interrupting me to tell me about a damaged book.

This post turned out to be a bit more involved than I'd originally planned! If you found it helpful, I'd really appreciate hearing it in the comments! I created some labels to go with all these categories. The  product covers much of the same information in this post, and it includes over 200 labels. There's also an editable page if you need to add anything.

The outline with the concept map pictures that I've mentioned several times also includes this little quick guide.

If you found this post to be interesting or fun, I'd love for you to connect with me!

photo credit: Dr. Seuss collection via photopin (license)

Elementary Teachers Ought to Know These Books

One day I sat to read to my students and said, "Boys and girls, I am so excited to share this book with you. This is my favorite book!"

One of my students interrupted me:

"I thought the book you read yesterday was your favorite book."

As I considered this, I realized I call a lot of books my favorite. Now it's a bit of a running joke in my classroom. I have many favorite books for many different purposes and reasons, so I could not resist this fun link party with Primary Polka Dots. 

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No matter what grade I taught, I know I would be able to use The Great Fuzz Frenzy for a solid lesson. 

The Great Fuzz Frenzy begins when a dog drops a tennis ball down a prairie dog hole. The prairie dogs are very excited about the fuzz. They fight over it, and then Big Bark steals all the fuzz. Soon Big Bark finds himself in some serious trouble, and Pip Squeak persuades them to move beyond their anger over the fuzz and work together to rescue Big Bark. The prairie dogs learn that a kind, caring community is more important than flashy belongings. 

Honestly, I think it would be hard to find a CCSS Literature or Language Standard I couldn't teach using this book! We always discuss the author's central message and practice some close listening and visualization. If you want to read a little more about it, I've written about this book before.

Last summer I wrote a post about my favorite authors. The list did not include Amy Krause Rosenthal because I wasn't very familiar with her at the time. This changed in the spring when I fell in love with Spoon. I wrote a blog post and a book study within a week of reading it! Her books are delightful, clever, and deep. A few weeks ago I discussed how I guide young readers through an interesting and meaningful conversation about Duck! Rabbit!

My other favorite book by Ms. Rosenthal is Chopsticks. I found it at our school's book fair in April. It really deserves its own post, but since I haven't written one yet, here's a little summary:

The chopsticks are inseparable friends, but tragedy strikes. One of the chopsticks breaks. Although it's never said with words (so you can teach inferring), the uninjured chopstick's incessant talking drives his recovering friend crazy! The injured chopstick convinces his friend to explore the world on his own for a while. At first, chopstick isn't sure what to do, but then he realizes he can have exciting adventures on his own. We learn that friendship is great, but we can survive and thrive as individuals as well. As if this story wasn't compelling enough, there's lots of entertaining word play and fantastic illustrations.

I think the best word to describe Lynn Munsinger's illustrations is heartwarming. I particularly love the teamwork of Ms. Munsinger with Helen Lester and Laura Numeroff. Munsignor manages to convey so much love through her artwork. Just look at those covers on What Mommies Do Best/What Daddies Do Best! Those two titles are actually the same (double sided) book. It's very cool because "mommies" and "daddies" are the only words that change in the stories. I can tell Munsinger took great care not to perpetuate any stereotypes in the books. She and Laura Numeroff also created What Brothers/Sisters Do Best, What Grandmas/Grandpas Do Best, etc.

My first year teaching I really panicked when I heard we were teaching poetry. After lots of learning on my part, poetry is my favorite writing unit! Little Dog Poems is, without question, my number one mentor text for teaching writing to first graders. This book seriously deserves it's own post, so I'm not even going to try to sum it up in a quick paragraph. I promise there will be some posts about teaching poetry, and I will go into detail about this book. I think I'm putting it off because I'm not sure how to do it justice.

It is hard to end this post without talking about Cynthia Rylant, Leo Lionni, or Doreen Cronin, so please, read Favorite Authors and My Students Just Loved Snot!

Please help me find some more great literature. Suggest an author, book, or illustrator (or one of each) in the comments. You can find lots of other great books by visiting the linky at Primary Polka Dots.

If you found this post to be interesting or fun, I'd love for you to connect with me!

Deeper Comprehension: Duck! Rabbit!

One of the benefits of reading picture books my kids love many times is I get all kinds of ideas about how a book can be used to develop reading and thinking skills in an elementary classroom. Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krause Rosenthal is a powerful book. It doesn't have many words, but it is full of meaning and the humor that made AKR my new favorite author. 

Duck! Rabbit! is an excellent book to use to teach kids how to identify the author's central message--a Common Core State Standard at just about every grade level.

Before we walk through the comprehension lesson, look at the cover.

Do you see the rabbit? 

Do you see the duck?

Duck! Rabbit! is engaging and thought-provoking for all ages!

Young children like its simple pictures, and if you read it with good expression, they are highly entertained by the debate. Is this picture a rabbit or a duck?

Beginning readers will enjoy reading and rereading this book themselves--making it a sneaky way to help them develop reading fluency.

The book gets interesting when you begin to look for the author's message. There is a basic framework you can teach kids to use to identify the author's central message. It's also a great framework for summarizing and retelling. You can get a printable sign with the four prompts for free in my TPT Store.

Let's walk through the lesson so you can see the magic of the framework.

What is the problem in the story?

Answer: The characters (who exist only as voices) disagree about which animal they see in a picture.

Taking comprehension deeper:  Students can usually figure out the problem, but they struggle to put their thoughts into words. Students will probably say, "'They' are fighting over whether 'it's' a duck or a rabbit." Try to push them to identify the pronouns more specifically. The voices don't have names or faces, which will be a point of interest. It might be challenging for students to identify "it" as a drawing or picture. They will tend to want to call it a duck or a rabbit, and trying to decide what to call it will make them think critically.

What do the characters do about the problem?

Answer: They each give supporting reasons for their opinion.

Taking comprehension deeper: Students should be able to tell that the characters are arguing, but I find they have a hard time using the higher-level vocabulary to more accurately describe what is happening. I usually have to suggest words like reasons and opinions. We work together as a class to get the statement as clear and concise as possible. It helps to write down the words (or type them onto a SmartBoard.

What do the characters learn?

Answer: They learn that the picture could be a duck or a rabbit. They realize they are both right.

Taking comprehension deeper: Students should notice that the characters begin to see each other's perspective. It will be hard for them to recognize that both characters are correct. Some might be completely convinced the drawing is a rabbit, so they'll think that one character was right in the beginning and the other one was right at the end. In my experience, once someone points out that they can both be right most of the class will agree.

What does the author want you to learn?

Answer: There can be more than one correct answer to a question. What you see depends on your perspective.

Taking comprehension deeper: It's going to really difficult for young students to get to this point. This is why I think this text could be used with much older students than the ones I teach. To try to get primary kids to this point, I would emphasize that the drawing is what the characters learned about, but the author want's us to learn about LIFE. Using "in life" as a sentence starter will probably get most groups to something like: "In life, different people think different things about stuff." I dislike the word stuff, so I  push them to try to think of better words like situations or events.

 To help them understand, provide some relatable examples: 

Climbing trees: kids think it's fun, but parents are scared the kids will get hurt.

Rainy days: Some people are sad because they don't like going outside in the rain, but farmers are happy because they need rain for their crops.

Honestly, I think high school students could probably benefit from this discussion, but I doubt high school teachers I using Duck! Rabbit! (unfortunately). 

Lessons like this are my favorite part of teaching! It takes extreme patience to guide a conversation like this, but I think every kid in the classroom can get something out of it. It's totally worth it.

I'd love to learn about some other apparently simple picture books that can get pretty deep. Share your favorite in the comments.

Visit Reading Toward the Stars to learn about other fantastic books! 

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My Students Just Loved Snot!*

*Snot is one of the characters in Doreen Cronin's book Boom, Snot, Twitty. 

I found this book by accident when I was looking for some of Doreen Cronin's other books, and I'm glad I did! This book is perfect for character analysis.

Boom, Snot, Twitty is the story of 3 friends, a bear, a snail, and a bird. They are spending the day together. The book tells about how each character responds to the events of the day. 

I read this book to my class 3 times. (And there were no complaints!) The first time we just enjoyed it. It was interesting how the kids immediately began gravitating toward a character. My class was about an even split between identifying with Boom (the bear) and Snot (the snail). 

The second time I read it, I had the kids use their white boards to take notes. I showed them how to make a table with each name in it. Their first challenge was to listen for things each character said. They recorded as we went through the book. I paused a few times, but didn't give them guidance. At the end I wrote down some of the things they'd heard the characters say. We repeated this process with the kids recording what the characters did. A nice feature of the book is that the things the characters say and do are very concise.

Once we had lists of things each character said and did, we tried to draw conclusions about the way that each character felt.

To wrap the lesson up, I asked them questions like, "Which character is your mom the most like?" and "Do you know anyone who is like Twitty?" "In what way are they like Twitty?" 

It was a really good discussion!

I'm linking this post with Andrea at Reading Toward the Stars. Book Talk Thursday is one of my favorite linkups! Other books I've written about include The Cat, the Dog, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma, Spoon, and Sneezy the Snowman.

Check out what other teachers are reading by clicking on the button below.

If you found this post to be interesting or fun, I'd love for you to connect with me!