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The Brown Bag Teacher

Teach the Children. Love the Children. Change the World.

5th Grade Classroom Library

Praise the Lord, Alleluia by and by…I see the light at the end of the room-setting-up tunnel! Yesterday was new-teacher orientation and then, I stayed at school cleaning/organizing/arranging/sorting until 9ish. I am *almost* there! I just tried my first desk arrangement and it’s not terrible – which I would consider a HUGE success. So, *fingers* crossed I’ll be able to show you my room by Monday-ish. 🙂 Until then, I would {love} to share my classroom library with you. So, here we go!

On the far wall, I have my fiction section of the library that includes about 20 bins of 16 different categories.

 

You also see my bulletin board above the bookcase which includes genre posters that we’ll review the first week of school. The posters will act 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). On the far right you see running list of ‘Words to Know’ that we’ll cover in our first unit together. Through the year, I’ll switch out the words. I wanted to go ahead and have them up for Open House so parents will know what we will be learning the first few weeks!

And moving on…….to my the-bottle-of-mustard-just-threw-up-on-my-wall yellow-partitioned
wall there is my non-fiction collection that consists of 12 different
categories with one (now empty) book hospital.

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 will be our classroom’s “Favorite Book Quotes” area. As students are reading their books, they will look for the ‘just perfect’ quote to include on the board. I just finished up The One and Only Ivan, and had to start our class out. BEST BOOK EVER.

Since my 5th graders do not go to library (yes, you read that correctly), 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.

And when you put it altogether *channel the Macarena* 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!
Later in the year, I discovered that I needed shelves devoted specifically to books in a series. They were getting lost in the baskets and once my 5th graders read one read, they HAD the read the rest. 😉 So, 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!

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, what do you think? I really hope my fifth graders love it! I had a chance to meet a few of my kiddos at registration last week, and…..they were not terrifying!!!! In fact, I think I *might* like them. YAYAYAY – it was {such} a huge relief and I kind of felt like crying. Plus, I was even taller than some of them – say what?!?! I know. 🙂 It’s the small things people.

Happy Thursday, friends. I am off to the Scholastic Warehouse and Ikea! That’s right – I am living the dream. 🙂

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