Monday, July 21, 2014

Monday Made It

It has been a few weeks since I participated in Tara's Monday Made it, mostly because it seems like my "made its" have been huge FAILS!  I tried making a cute home made sign that I have been wanting for like forever...well needless to say, my sign making sills are greatly lacking!  Anyway, on to this week's made its.



I decided to give a go at making some decor for my classroom.  I am very pleased with the way it turned out!  I love the bright colors and I think my students will like them too.  I know my room needs to be student friendly, but I also spend most of my life in that room during the school year.  Since third grade is such a huge transition for the kids from primary to intermediate grades I try to have my room be fun but with a bit of sophistication and I think this decor pack achieves that.  Take a look at my TPT store here.  It will be on sale all day today!  




Sorry no pics for this one.  This project was such a mess I forgot to get the camera out!

My classroom library has been my nemesis!  I have struggled for the past 10 years with how to organize it and keep it organized through the year!  I have had it by author's last name for the last 6 years of third grade.  While it is not the best, it has worked  and it was way too overwhelming for me to try to redo the whole thing.  At the end of the school year it became quite apparent to me that my library needed a little TLC.  Some of the books were falling apart and needed repair and others just needed to go.  Soooo.....I boxed the whole library up and carted it home.  As I was repairing books I decided this was the perfect time to reorganize the whole thing.  I did not want too many subgroups as I feel that just becomes too complicated and let's just be honest, third graders are never going to keep it organized anyway!  I decided on fiction, non-fiction, picture books, and series books.  I don't know if this will work or not, but I hope my students are able to find books that fit their needs easily.  

How do you organize your classroom library?  How do you help students keep it organized throughout the year in a way that is easy and requires little time from you?  Any helpful tips or ideas?  

Summer is flying by waaaayyy too fast, I will be in my classroom before I know it.  I hope you all are enjoying your break...head on over to see some other great Made Its!

Nicole



2 comments:

  1. I'm moving to 3rd grade from 1st. I was hoping that 3rd graders were better at putting books back where they belong than my first graders were. I have my AR books sorted by grade level and the rest of the books are sorted by general topics (biographies, animal non-fiction, insects and spiders, etc... I may have to totally re-organize it, if it is a mess. I may have 2 student librarians that 're-shelve' books.
    Kelly
    I'm Not Your Grandpa, I'm Your Teacher

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  2. If your system is simple, the kids can keep it in order. My books are sorted by guided reading level. I wrote the letter of every book in the upper left corner with a sharpie. You can find book levels by using Scholastic Book Wizard. There are also several Apps that do the same job. Then label the bucket with the letter or number (whatever your school uses). My 2nd graders know which letter they should have in their boxes. This seems to help them choose books that are just right for practice.

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