a library intervention {part deux}.

Last Friday, we hosted a little library intervention of sorts. Can I just say how much the little muffins L-O-V-E their new library?! Considering we went from this...

..to this...

...they were quite sure that Santa had come back for Round 2 on this 77 degree February day. That's not to say their ooh's and aah's weren't justified (and music to my infected ears) - it did take quite a bit of effort for this transformation to happen. But you already know how it came about, so let's get into today.

The little nuggets stole my heart again, y'all. In an effort to keep our library pristinely organized, we were helping our friends check the spine, title page, or cover for the author's last name, debating if Dr. Seuss books should go under "S" or "G" since his real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel, I mean...if that doesn't make your heart melt like a popsicle on the 4th of July, I don't know what will. All of that to say, they did a smashing good job adjusting to our new little system and they are so excited to have a lovely little library again!

But I still had one more project up my sleeve to make our intervention complete. When I took you on a tour of the superhero room, you might have noticed that at the very front of our room, we have some open-faced, book display cases.

Do you see them? Right underneath our ActivBoard and dry erase board, next to our coin posters. They are just some wooden display cases that have been in the school for years. I had been using them as an extension of the library with no real purpose - just one more storage area for books. But today, I decided that these could be used more as our "favorites" section of the library - to house the books that my kids are CONSTANTLY going after as well as our class-created books. I felt that if I pulled these selected books out of the library area and into a separate part of the room, it would not only prevent a scrum at the Reading Loft entrance, but it could also draw attention to our favorite authors and series that are absolutely perfect fits for our little reading levels.

So I pulled our most popular books and series from the library and created signs for the shelves so the kids would know where the books belong when they are returning them.

I attached the signs to the wooden "seat belt" with zip ties for extra security, and fifteen minutes later, we had some beautifully labeled display cases (don't mind the fact that Sheila Rae the Brave ran away when it came time for her close-up).

Now each little shelf is clearly labeled, with series title or author and a picture for easy reference!

I used DJ Inker's Doodler's Stitch font for the labels and Thistle Girl clip art for the science book picture.

• it took no more than 15 minutes to accomplish.
• it gives the kids a quick and easy reference for knowing where to find and return the books.
• it creates another "mini-library" area for the nuggets to explore.
• it highlights age-appropriate, reading-level-friendly books.

I think that our little library intervention is finally complete! Halle - to the - lujah indeed! Happy Tuesday like a Monday y'all!

a library intervention.

Earlier this year, I took you on a tour of the superhero room. We waltzed our way into the room...

...continued in organized bliss to our math tubs...

...twirled on over to the calendar area...

...but the music came to a screeching, record-scratching halt when we hit our Reading Loft...

 ...like seriously - what is that??? I mean, books on top of books:

...books not even making it onto the shelves because kiddos don't know where they go...

...books hanging off shelves and laying on the floor and under the shelves...

We tried having several tubs of similar books (insect books, space books, Junie B. Jones books, etc.) where the sticker on the tub matched the sticker on the book, so the kids just had to match sticker to sticker to know where to put the book. Clearly, that wasn't working, because apparently "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" is considered a "My Neighborhood" book.

Something had to be done! I began researching different classroom libraries, and loved that Mrs. Johnson over at Wild about Kindergarten organized her books by author...

I also loved Fantastic First Grade's approach to setting up their library:

Again, they had a plethora of baskets and organized their books by genre. While I love this idea, I think we saw how successful genre baskets were in our old library (remember "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" finding a home in "My Neighborhood"?)

I started to settle on the idea of organizing our library by author. If I organized our classroom library by author, it would mimic how our school library is arranged. This would give the kids a bit of consistency from school to classroom library and gives them 2 opportunities to practice alphabetizing by author.

The only problem with the above option is I really wasn't wanting to invest in 26 new baskets, and even if I was willing, I knew I had tons of books by authors whose last names started with similar letters (tons of "H" authors, tons of "S" authors...you get the picture) which would mean multiple or overflowing baskets for some letters. I felt that I needed a more flexible means of alphabetizing our books.

As I brainstormed, I decided that if I made thick, heavy dividers for each letter, it would allow for more flexibility on the bookshelves. Letters with more books by that letter's authors could have larger sections of our bookshelves, while still allowing for small sections to be taken up by less popular letters.

Now that I had an idea in mind, the magnitude of the project began to hit me. I mean, we are talking about alphabetizing hundreds and hundreds of books here! My anxiety levels over the state of our library were reaching alarming heights, however, and I knew I couldn't wait until summer to start the project. But sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and dive in head first! Thanks to some super awesome teammates jumping in to help during their free time, we tackled and conquered the project in what seemed like no time! (I'm sure my little helpers would beg to differ) But Mrs. Teacher still had some work ahead of her. We had our books in piles based on the author's last name, but we weren't actually sitting on the shelves yet...

I suppose this would be a good time to tell you that I made the dividers by cutting out some letters printed on polka-dot paper in my favorite font (Wish I Were Taller from Kevin and Amanda). Yes, I had to cut them out by hand because I'm still waiting on Santa to come through with the Sillhouette request...  I then glued the letters onto posterboard I cut down to hang off the perfect amount from our bookshelves and laminated the posterboard twice for extra durability, resulting in an adorable little divider!

After a couple of hours of me loading the books onto the shelves, our newly organized, glorious library is ready for its debut!

And a view from outside our Reading Loft:

I did trade our tall, skinny bookshelf that was only deep enough to hold chapter books for a deeper shelf that matched our 2 others from our Word Work station. That got rid of our "hanging off the shelf" problem at no cost!

Speaking of cost, I used posterboard and polka dot paper that I already had to create the dividers, making this little project cost a whole lot of NOTHING! 

I can't wait for Tuesday morning (Happy President's Day to you, by the way) - I didn't get to load the shelves until Friday after the kiddos went home. I can't wait for them to see our new library! They kept peeking in at the loft all day Friday trying to see how the little project was coming along - now they get to see it all nice and neat!

Why our new library is so very elementary:

• It's consistent with our school library's organization, making it easy to maintain for the kids.
• Being that the books are not confined to baskets, each section of authors has room to grow.
• I didn't have to spend a nickel to create such a lovely little space.

Next week, the kiddos and I will definitely have to spend some time practicing filing away our books properly, but I think the practice will pay off in full measure! I have already built in several mini-lessons on reviewing our concept of print skills - we will do some think-alouds about where to look for the author's name if we don't see it on the cover, and have several chances to practice during our Joy Reading time.

I do have a back-up plan in place if we don't quite get the hang of filing away our books. If needed, I will create a "returned books" tub that me and a Library Helper can file away properly once per week. But I have a little bit of an inkling that my little muffins will do a superb job with our new system!

How do you organize your classroom library? What works for your little ones? Have you had a massive failure like me? How did you conquer it?

color-coded goodness.

{Update: My color-coded word wall can now be YOURS by clicking here! To learn more about the word wall packet, check out this post!}

Several weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to attend a conference focused on best practices for engaging students with special needs in a general education classroom. I learned a great deal in many of the keynote and breakout sessions, but in my final breakout session, the presenter focused on teaching vocabulary to students with special needs. One of the methods she proposed was an interactive, color-coded word wall. My word wall was interactive, yes, but color-coded? Brilliant! After thinking over this idea a bit, I also decided that such a strategy would benefit not only my students with special needs, but my entire class!

Here is what my word wall has looked like for the past two years...

Now, I'm sure you're all thinking, but Eryn, your word wall already IS color-coded! You have lovely yellow and white notecards that MUST mean something exceedingly important! Ar contrar madam. The truth is, I simply ran out of white notecards when I was making my word cards my first year so started using the yellow ones and have been too lazy busy to change it in the past two years. Ridiculousness at it's best.

On a more positive note, I did like that this board was magnetic, allowing me to simply attach a piece of magnetic tape to each word so that students could remove and replace words they needed with ease. I definitely wanted to maintain the ease of use! By color-coding my word wall, I could also accomplish a couple of my other desires for the space: give the wall a bit more uniformity by typing all of the words rather than handwriting them and adding other high-frequency words to the wall that my kids are constantly asking how to spell!

So, I began typing up all of my words (taking MUCH less time than I anticipated) and then began the process of sorting them into the following categories: red flag words (our district's name for sight words), family words, color words, number words, and feeling/emotion words. Once my words were sorted, I was ready to print them on their appropriate colored papers:

• red flag words (shocker)
• feeling/emotion words
• color words
• family words
• number words

I re-applied magnetic tape to each word card, and after posting them back in their appropriate spot, our word wall now looks lovelier than ever!

And some close-ups of the different colors:

My kids consistently come to the word wall to retrieve a word they need help spelling at their desk, so I used cardstock for these cards so that they will hopefully last several years.

Let's evaluate the success of this project:

• create a more kid-friendly space by making color-coded words to help students locate words they need more quickly {check}
• maintain magnetic aspect {check}
• increase uniformity by typing all words {check}
• utilize supplies I already had to keep cost at $0 {double check}

My kiddos have only had access to their new word wall for one day, but they are already LOVING it! We talked about what each color represented, and they went hog wild utilizing their new tool. I think we can all agree that's the biggest and most important success! {insert cheesy educational sweater vest here to make that statement more complete}

Do y'all have word walls? What do y'alls look like? Do you have another way that you and your kiddos like organizing it?

conquering the bathroom cabinet.

I think it’s a disease that all girls have: the I-have-all-of-this-bathroom-cabinet-space-so-I-need-to-pack-it-to-the-gills-if-it-kills-me disease. It’s not a bad disease, it’s just a girl disease. We like our body washes and bath salts, our specialized hair products and travel-sized accessories. No denying, they are all God’s gift to man. The problem is created when we acquire too many of those indispensable sussies and we are no longer using our space efficiently.

You can see, that I had a BIG case of the I-have-all-of-this-bathroom-cabinet-space-so-I-need-to-pack-it-to-the-gills-if-it-kills-me disease.

This cabinet held all of my “bulk” items (I buy my shampoo, body wash, etc. at Sam’s, so always have 4-5 bottles of each – great price, horrible storage) as well as my travel gear, sunscreen, etc. It was essentially a catch-all for anything I don’t use on a daily basis.

While I was at Target grabbing baskets for my dreaded over-the-microwave calendar facelift, I got a couple extra so I could tackle my bathroom in one fell swoop. I sorted my sussies into “bulk”, “sun”, “travel”, and “miscellaneous” items. After creating some adorbs labels, all of my bulk items are now contained in one big basket:


All of my travel gear is here:


And sun skincare items are here:


So that in a lovely stack in front of the bulk items, we have (don’t mind the glare – I needed a flash, but couldn’t eliminate the glare):


Target only had a limited number of the green baskets (my faves), so I figured that 2 aqua baskets could sandwich the lovely green and no one would be too upset.

Each basket is easily stacked and removed making access to all of my items easy and efficient! Victory indeed.

Do you have the I-have-all-of-this-bathroom-cabinet-space-so-I-need-to-pack-it-to-the-gills-if-it-kills-me disease? How do you wrangle all of your bathroom goodies?