Preparing Our Library

Yesterday we meet with Mrs. Johnson to begin preparing our library for opening.   Today we continued our exploration into our library by labeling our bins with more specific genres found in either fiction or non-fiction genres.

We learned yesterday that our non-fiction books were placed in blue bins while the fiction books were placed in the grey bins.  Two more color codes were added to our understanding.  These colors were purple and yellow.  The yellow codes indicate books written by the same author or are found in a series.  The purple codes indicate genre or type of book.  These codes are being used by other teachers who were and are involved in the literacy coaching process.  This is exciting because we are building common language across the district for identifying books in our classroom libraries. 

Library Anchor Chart

Next, Mrs. Johnson and I demonstrated how labels were created that included the appropriate color, a possible picture, and finally a typed label indicating fiction or nonfiction and a genre with a short description.  These labels will eventually be added to our bins.

Book Labels
Yellow - Author or Series
Purple - Genre or Topic

After adding these ideas to our anchor chart, students worked with partners to go through each bin in our library.  Their job was to decide which type of genre was represented by the books in the bin.  After discussing their books, they went up to one of our tables and chose the appropriate index card.

Looking At Labels

Wow!  I am so proud of them!  They did such a great job!  There dedication to working through their bins and making careful observations was fantastic!  They had wonderful comments to say, thought books should be placed in different bins for great reasons, and had wonderful suggestions for new labels.  We are not finished with our bin labeling, but have a great start!  It will be so exciting to open our library and really see students "using" it!

For more photos check our Reading and Writing Tab.

Happy Bloggin!