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"How do you do it all?"

Someone asked me, "How do you do all of this and have a young family?" I am used to hearing people say, "Do you ever sleep?" Yes, I sleep. In fact, I need at least 8 hours of sleep each night. Rest is important for me to function at full speed as well as for my recovering brain. It's a fair question. When I was a beginning teacher, I would arrive at school early in the morning and stay there until past dinner. Then, most nights I was doing work at home before bed. It would've been really difficult for me to be an excellent teacher if I were just now starting with littles at home (not to say that others who are just starting and have littles at home can't be excellent teachers, just that it would've been hard for ME). But due to that hard (and likely unhealthy) work back then, I have a lot of strategies in my teacher tool kit and many resources to pull from. I also spend an hour each day in the summer working on resources that will help me durin...
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Organizing the Classroom Library

What. A. Task!  14 years of teaching and I'm still seeking ways to better organize my classroom library.  When I moved into my current teaching position (4th grade) 4 years ago, I lost a lot of bookshelf space and ended up packing away half of my library.  Don't worry, I used my "back up library" to swap books out mid-year so that students had "new" books to take them through the second semester. This summer, a local business donated 6 bookcases to my classroom and I am over the moon!  Now I can FINALLY have my full library back!  But, how do I organize my books?  Way back when I was teaching in Northern Virginia, I remember taking a SPOT training and learning about classroom library organization.  Besides having regular buckets with different themes, it was suggested to have a few buckets labeled "Boy Books" and "Girl Books".  That never set too well with the little tomboy deep inside of me because I know that personally, I've never really enjoyed the typical "girl" books and I'd had to see a little boy be teased for enjoying "girl" books. 
Anyway, a few weeks ago I started debating how to reorganize my library.  I reached out to friends and colleagues as well as scoured Pinterest and Google for the answer.  I didn't find one set answer. I was bummed.  Then I secured childcare for my littles and spent the day in my classroom sorting, labeling, and making my classroom library all that I had dreamed it would be.  About midmorning, it came to me.  There isn't one set way to organize a classroom library.  I sorted books into piles of series, picture books (yes, I do believe children are never too old for a good picture book) and common themes and went from there.  The answer to my "boy" and "girl" dilemma was to label books "Fun and Friends" and "Adventure" so that they didn't play to a specific gender.  I also had to make a few duplicate bins when they started to get too full.  If bins are too full, I've learned that students won't take the time to sort through that bin and will end up skipping it altogether. 
I'm so happy with the way my bins turned out and think it will encourage my students to read even more; I mean, after all, isn't that the ultimate goal of a classroom library?
So, the moral of this story is that if you are like me and struggling with the right way to organize your books accept that there is no right way.  Do what works for you with the books you have. 
Side note, I do put specific stickers on books that go together as well as on the bin they go in so that my class librarian (weekly job) can easily return books from the return bin to the correct bin.  I use garage sale stickers that I bought online.  They tend to stay put the longest.  Also, I have to get creative once I've run out of different sticker colors.

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