Library update

My goal this week was to get my classroom library organized. Honestly, before Friday I had no idea what books were even in the library. They were all here when I arrived. I was pretty excited to find a whole stack of Boxcar Children (my faves) as well as a large collection of American Girl books. I'm kind of in love with American Girl.

Anyway, here's my library "before" picture...

The curtains are new... everything else needs work!

And here's my library now!

The bins came from the dollar section of Target. They're so cute up close--the sides have little circles on them. I made labels using a free chevron pattern template that I found on Pinterest. They look great with the chevron curtain, which you can't see in this picture. My books are in really random categories, but that doesn't matter to me. I'm just happy that each book has a place to go! I hate when you categorize things and there are one or two items left over. Drives. Me. Crazy.

The rug, which I'm sure you're admiring, was $9 at Kohl's. It is made from upcycled scraps of fabric. Love it! I think I'm going to hang a sign in the corner that says "Firestone Library," which is one of the libraries on the Princeton campus (Princeton is our classroom's college this year).

To keep the library organized (hopefully) I have a container of book markers, which are just Lowe's paint stirrers with the students' numbers on them. Each student can put his or her marker in the appropriate basket when removing a book. This will help the kids remember to put the books back in the right places, or so I've been told :) We'll see if it works for us. At least the paint stirrers were free!