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The Brown Bag Teacher

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Curating a 5th Grade Classroom Library

Happy Thursday, friends! Today marks the third week of our Reading in the Wild summer book study and we’re talking all about our classroom libraries! If you are just joining us and missed the first week (Wild Readers Dedicate Time to Read), second week (Creating a Workshop Schedule that Works for You), or third week (Building an Excitement for Reading) make sure to check them out!

This week’s hosts are Molly at Lessons with Laughter and Carrie at Being Ladylike!

Without hesitation, my library is the most important part of our classroom. In 5th grade, my students never had a designated library time, so many times my classroom library was the only one my 90 5th grade friends would see. Additionally, I want students leaving my classroom knowing that reading is amazing and there is always a book for them!
Over the past year, it is very reasonable to assume I added close to 1,000 books to our collection. We keep a running “Books We NEED for Our Library” list, use Scholastic Points like it’s our job, and always have a live Donor’s Choose project for more books. The most important factor in acquiring books for our library? My kids are always involved. They track our Scholastic points, make book-buying priority lists, and help me raffle the books when they arrive. Once the kids arrive in August, it’s no longer my library but our library.
We have 3 sets of bookshelves for our books. The first bookshelf found under our Genre bulletin board holds our fiction books organized by topic/genre using these labels. Since most books fit in more than one category, after a student finishes a book, he or she places the book in the category they felt best fit the book best. Overall, this system worked very well (plus, the idea of actually marking my books makes me ill). As a safeguard, the “Protector of Books” (a classroom job) looked at the books every afternoon to make sure they were in their just-right homes.

 

The bulletin
board above the bookcase showcases genre posters that we reviewed the first week of school and referred to throughout the year as we read together and recommended books to one another. The posters acted as a visual reminder to students about the different categories of the books they should be reading throughout the year (based on The Book Whisperer), working our way to 40 books by May. On the far right you see running list of ‘Words to Know’ that we incorporated in our units. Through the year, I switched out the words so students had a “game plan” of what was to come!
Adjacent to our fiction shelf, we have our nonfiction shelve which gets a work-out. Our nonfiction books were a hit this year – 10 True Tales Books were a hit in September/October, war books in December, and books about the Holocaust in April! (This was a picture of the shelf in August, and it definitely did not look full. By May, we had added 7 more containers of books! I never took a picture of it before the end of the year – oops – but have a few pictures that give you the general gist of the shelf.

 

Also, you might notice
writing on the side of my filing cabinet! No, I did not defile school property,
but I did cover the side in black butcher paper and purchased a silver sharpie and added a magnet to the cap.
This was our classroom’s “Favorite Book Quotes” area. As students enjoyed their books, they searched for the ‘just perfect’ quote to include on
the board. After finishing The One and Only Ivan, I added this thought.
Since my 5th
graders do not go to library as a part of their specials schedule, it is SO important
that my library appeals to all of my readers. So, I wanted to make sure I have
different books on display. I picked up a magazine display from Staples, and
then, two plate holders from Hobby Lobby! The two picture frames that you see
were one of my spray paint projects a few weeks ago. We also use student-written book blurbs and monthly book displays to add interest to our reading area!
Directly across from our nonfiction shelves (on the opposite wall), we have our books-in-a-series shelves  I found it did not work putting these books on the non-fiction/fiction shelves because they would get separated from one another and they were difficult to find. We added them to shelves I purchased at Target and they were organized by the author’s last name. (Note – after our last Donor’s Choose project of graphic novel series was funded, I had to move my teacher binders and replace them with books! :))

Lastly, I place my REALLY low books (Horrible Harry, Clementine  Nancy Drew Clue Crew, Magic School Bus chapter books) in the bottom drawer of my black file cabinet. From there, I added containers to the bottom shelves of my fiction and nonfiction shelves for students to pick from. My students who read at grade-level or above never really paid attention to these books (although they were welcome to pick them up for a quick, fun read), but my below-grade level readers were able to pick books from the shelves just like everyone else!

And when you put it
altogether you get a nice little reading space.  I would have loved to add a chair and other ‘warm
fuzzy’ items, but with limited space that was not in the cards this
year. Although there are no ‘extras’ my students have a well organized and appealing library
from which to choose! Hopefully, this will begin our adventure of reading 40 books by May!

For all my intermediate friends, you can find the labels I used here. Also, a sweet friend
requested a set of labels for Primary Land, so I whipped these out. I took out
the cursive ‘nonfiction’ ‘fiction’ section of each label and added more topics/categories.
There are over 55 labels in this pack, and I am always happy to edit/add labels
if you need them!

So, friends, how do you organize your classroom library? Work works for you or what does your school expect? I always love looking at pictures of classroom libraries, so please do share! 🙂

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. Agatha says

    I love your library! It's fantastic! Do you mind me asking what did you use for the actual "tubs"? The look like Sterlite, but wanted to know for sure. 🙂

    Reply

    • Kate says

      Hi Agatha! I use the Bella tubs from Lowes. They are $1.27. They're a little bigger than the Dollar Tree clear tubs and are completely clear -no haze! 🙂

      Reply

  5. Ali says

    I have been looking for a new way to organize my library. I have the opportunity to redo it all now, so I think I shall take a page from you book {no pun intended} ; ) when I put it all back together again in August. Thanks for sharing your ideas!

    Ali
    Teaching Powered by Caffeine

    Reply

  8. Chelsea says

    Catherine you library looks great! I like your idea about having the kids track scholastic points and so forth. Those scholastic points are like gold! Just like you those points and Donor's Choose have funded my classroom library. Lovin your genre posters, I have them on my wish list.

    Chelsea
    Fifth Grade Wit and
    Whimsy

    Reply

  11. Carrie Garrison says

    I love the word cloud/subway art genre posters! You should totally sell those in your TPT store…because I would buy them. 🙂 Also, where did you get your book tubs? Thanks for sharing such great pictures and telling us all about your library. I need to update mine for sure and yours serves as inspiration.
    being-ladylike.blogspot.com

    Reply

    • Kate says

      Hi Carrie! The posters are in my store along with coordinating reading comprehension posters and classroom expectation posters. 🙂 The tubs are from Lowes. They are the Bella tubs that sell for $1.27. They are a little bigger than the Dollar Tree tubs and completely clear!!

      Reply

  14. Heather Joy says

    I have been thinking about my classroom library, so this was a timely post! Do you label your books at all (colored stickers or something like that)? I have my books separated by genre as well, but I am considering whether to label them (subtly) or not.

    Reply

  19. Melissa Garcia says

    I see that you have different classes. When a child picks a chapter book that takes them a few days to read where do they put it? I have a major problem with a child from my first class picking a book and a different child from my second class takes that book. I have about 60 children so individual book bins don't work well because of space.

    Reply

  22. Natalie says

    I teach 5th grade and library organization gives me the hives! I want allofthebooks in the proper bin right now, thankyouverymuch lol! I the idea of students replacing books in the category that THEY think it belongs is brilliant. It’ll release responsibility to them and make sure they understand genres. As soon as break is over I’m implementing this idea right away.

    Reply

  23. Maria Smith says

    This is fabulous! I teach 3rd – 5th Gifted Ed and I’ve been trying to find something to find my 1,000+ books more accessible to my students.
    Thank you!

    Reply

  24. Sandy Citron says

    I love this article and your primary labels. The links above do not connect to the intermediate labels. I’m unable to find them anywhere. Please help, because I’d like to buy them!

    Reply

  25. Mr. A says

    Great post! It is evident how much time you spent curating your library. Your library is well organized and your labels are awesome! What I enjoyed most about your post was how you guided us through each of your steps, detailing how you designed it and the reasons behind doing it the way you did. Then, you posted photos from your library and room. I also love how you have the word wall aligned to the unit words. The butcher paper for quotes is a great way for students to interact with their library. I really like how you have your books sorted, especially the fiction and non-fiction parts. Currently, I only have my library sorted by AR levels, as we use STAR Reading data for reading levels. It makes book shopping much easier, ensuring that students are choosing their ‘just right for you books’. Finally, I really liked seeing how you displayed some books on top of your shelf. This is one of many ideas that you have inspired me to adopt. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!

    Reply

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