Only my youngest went into school with me today, but we still managed to get just about everything organised and stored in the proper place. Above is the classroom as it currently is (yeah!). I've had to take a picture, though, as weeks 4 & 5 of the summer holiday are 'deep clean' weeks - so when I arrive back at the end of week 6 to start back to school, all of the furniture will be shoved into the centre of the room. This picture should help me to put everything back where it belongs. It will also remind me that I need to buy one more red utensil drainer/pencil holder for my last table.

In the back corner, I've organised our library. I came home with quite a few books, and I need to take some books from home (Magic Tree House, Flat Stanley, Junie B. Jones) into school. A few labels still need to be made and attached, but it's in fairly 'P3 ready' shape, I think. I'll have to see if I can scrounge a few cushions from somewhere as well.

These will be our reading trays. I normally name reading groups for a fruit, then colour code the fruit to the tray (e.g., red strawberries) to make it easy for kids to remember where to put their reading books and find their writing/reading jotters. Each child will have their own grey tray (below the reading trays). The leftover trays will store various supplies.

We also have a 'Maths Area', which kids will be able to access for supplies/math supports/manipulatives that they might need. So far, there are number cards, playing cards, dominoes, 3 different kinds of dice, buggy rekenreks, number lines, 100/120 squares, counting/connecting cubes and counters. There are also some shape building/tiling games that my P1s loved last year, and that I'm sure will be a favourite of next year's P3s as well. I'm planning to put some magnetic base 10 materials on the small whiteboard, and the cupboard underneath the board holds more maths games. One of the only things on my wall so far are the maths rotation boards (I'm assuming I'll have 3 maths groups, like last year - I guess we'll start with that, and adjust if we need to).

I think I'll use my Ikea Trofast unit (below) for 'Fast Finisher' tasks. I bought this 'All Done! Now What?' set from Miss Kindergarten Love on TPT, and it has lots of different tasks for kids to complete. The Trofast unit should be just the thing to organise everything - and it will be right there, after they hand in their 'Finished Work'.

At the moment, the unit is still filled with various maths manipulatives and literacy games from this past year. Yes, I mixed maths and literacy resources! I imagine that would drive some teachers up the wall. I have to say - I'm not naturally organised, but I'm learning that I need to be to teach. This organisation thing is a work in progress for me, but it's slowly getting there (which is a good thing, as I'm now onto my 4th year of teaching!).

Oh dear - not the neatest or most organised of class libraries, is it? It looks better now - but only because I've started to pack books away to move them to my new classroom next week.

Classroom libraries are huge in the States - but not so prominent here in the UK, I've found. But what an incredible resource for kids in our class - a classroom library full of books, at their reading and interest levels, which they can choose for themselves.

I'm slowly learning the importance of being selective in class libraries - too many books (see above picture) can be overwhelming. And it can be hard for kids to pick books at the appropriate level for them. So - one of my summer goals is to choose a range of books appropriate for my incoming P3s in August, and have them organised and displayed clearly so that children can easily see what's there and choose what they want to read.

Here's the AR bookfinder website that levels books by LEXILE and ATOS book levels. I know many in Scotland use coloured bookbands, so if you click here, you will be able to download a document that matches lexile levels with our book bands (my husband really didn't 'get' why I was so excited when I found this!).

My library related tasks for this summer:
1) Buy matching book baskets/boxes
2) Choose books suitable for all levels of readers in my class
3) Use the bookfinder website & book band converter to book band the books in my class library (might see if I can bribe a couple of children to help with this one!).
3) Organise the chosen books, so that some are grouped by author (Magic Treehouse books, Junie B. Jones, Horrid Henry, etc) while others are grouped by book band level.
4) (If there is time when all of that is done - ha!) label books grouped by author according to their bookband level as well - just to make choices a bit easier for kids.

I'll let you know how I get on!

Do you have a classroom library? Is it filled with school books, or with your own books? How do you organise them? And most importantly - how and when are kids able to choose their own books from the class library?