How do I organize the books in my kindergarten classroom library?

Answer 1

I am a senior early childhood major. From all my experience in the classroom working and observing, I have seen many teachers do a variety of ways as far as organizing their classroom libraries. One classroom I was particularly impressed with was a first grade classroom of a skilled master teacher. She had her books organized in containers by author, topic, subject, holiday, month, ect. She had the containers labeled and the containers made it easy for the students to go-through. This teacher also had a library stand with four shelves that she called "books of the month". Monthly, the books in this library stand are changed to keep up with the current topics and holidays that are currently going on.

I found this to be a wonderful way to organized books. I think your kindergarteners would find it easy to choose a book to their liking. Good luck.

Answer 2

I used to do it by reading level. All picture books were in the first section. The books that had one word per page would be in the next section. The books that had two-three words per page or had phrases that repeated I would put in the third section. I'm sure you get the idea. It worked real well, but the hardest part was keeping it organized. So, I put labels on the front for each section (A for the first, B for the second, etc.). Then, when it was time to put up the books, they would get some letter recognition and matching practice. After that, I had little problem keeping it organized. Most kids would pull out books from all sections, but those who were advanced quickly learned which books they could handle, and they would love to take the books they knew they could handle and read them to the other students. Good luck!

Answer 3

One way I have enjoyed is yes, organize the majority of your books by reading level. but then, I went out and bought a dozen or so plastic bins and labeled each one with a popular children's author (Dr. Seuss, Mercer Mayer, etc.) and put a collection of each author's work in each accordingly. Now, i teach in a small district and do ELA for all ages, k-12 but the kindergartners really enjoy sticking with an author, and getting into a particular author's books.

Answer 4

In Kindergarten, students are emergent readers. You will be looking for students who can hold the books the right way, turn the page, and eventually identify some of the words.

You will want to display the books in a way to attract student interest in them. You should always display the books covers out - so that students will be attracted to them.

One way to do this is to install simple and cheap vinyl rain gutters along your walls. You can place your books covers out.

You can group them acording to genres: Funny books, non-fiction books, and books by authors, etc. So that way, a student who is interested in cars can find books on trucks together. A student who is interested in Dr. Seuss will know where to find more Dr. Seuss books.

Also have an area set aside for reading and a place for students to sit comfortably to read - bean bags, pillows, and overstuffed chair.

Answer 5

If they are books that you are using for read alouds then I would arrange them by theme, such as apples, flowers, bees, etc. If they are books that children are going to be able to pull from to read or that you are using in reading groups then you should arrange them in order by reading levels.
I have three sections of books, which I know takes a long time to acquire enough books, but I have a library that my students can pull from during centers or when they complete work, a section that I have as only books that I use and display on a book stand for thematic units, and a section of readers to send home for reading and during their reading groups.

Answer 6

My sons teacher (1st grade) organizes the kids books in order of reading level. Then she puts little number stickers on them so she knows what number the kids are reading at. My other sons (preschool) teacher organizes the books in subject categories. She puts the science books together, family books together, animal books together...etc..

Answer 7

There are lots of way to do it. Probably the best is by category. You can create your own categories like "Ocean Life", "Concepts", "Nonsense and Make Believe" and then you can choose which category your books go in. Make sure to create a database that cross reference Title, Author, and Category so you can look them up and find them easily.

We have over 6,000 books at my school and this works for us - but we do have to inventory each year.

Good luck!

Answer 8

Rhyming, Science, Sports, Animals, Fiction, History. I did that for my daughters second grade classroom.

Answer 9

I was thinking alphabetically so the kids could re-enfocre learning the alphabet, but then I read the other answers and they sounded better.

Answer 10

You have lots of options.

You could label them hard, harder, and hardest
You could arrange them in basket sets by author
You could look for letter/sound patterns and arrange them that way.
Fiction/non-fiction
thematic patterns