Classroom Library

When I found out that I would be teaching 4th grade, I was not only happy but very excited.

.

This is for a few reasons:

1 - I would be working only one grade level below that which I spent a year interning in and therefore, I feel (although I may be just kidding myself) more prepared to teach 4th as opposed to a Kindergarten class or even 1st and 2nd grade.

2 - I would be working at the same school site and therefore, the same great team members and staff that I worked with and grew to love last year.

3 - I had already begun collecting children's books for my classroom library which were focused on 4th and 5th grade readers.

.

My third reason is probably not a very good one, but it is a reason to be excited none the less. I began collecting books since the beginning of my student teaching year and I knew then that I loved the 5th graders that I was working with and that I wanted to teach either 4th or 5th grade. I was lucky that things actually worked out and that I did not need to spend any more money on my classroom library to adjust it to fit the reading levels of a 2nd or 3rd grade classroom.

.

The above picture is my library, which includes the following: Non-Fiction (40 books), Fiction- Realistic Fiction (123), Historical Fiction (31), Fantasy (39), Mystery (25), Newberry Honors (26), Poetry (2) and Picture books (4, so far) and some odds and ends for a grande total of 304 books!

.

So with my classroom library filling out, I began to think about the layout of my new classroom and how I wanted things to flow and how I wanted to organize things. After getting to see my new room right after signing my contract, I began drawing out various scenarios for desk layouts and where I wanted the library and the teacher's desk and computers to be, etc. (I did this for my own bedroom growing up too. Any time that I wanted to make a change to my room, be it paint or simply moving my bed and nightstand, I had to draw it out so that my dad could see that I had thought things through and that he would not be moving the bed back to its original place only minutes after moving it for me. I guess this skill has paid off in at least one way:)

.

With some ideas floating around my head day in and day out, I was looking through my emails and found one from the Container Store which displayed their various wares and some ways that other shoppers have used these items. One of the items was a so called indestructible milk crate in various colors. This was used for storage and one idea was for seating. I thought 'why not buy a few of these (which were on sale at the time) for seating in my own classroom library?' The pictures to follow show the progression of an idea, into a reality and hopefully something that will actually work out for my classroom this year and beyond.

.

Two 13" x 13" squares and one 3" x 52" strip of fabric.

.

Pinning the edges of the pillow together before sewing the strip all the way around the edge of one of the 13" x 13" squares.

.

The almost finished product! Just add a square pillow form, hand stitch the open end together and...

.

You have three lovely little seats for my classroom library. Not only are they cute and comfortable, but they also naturally limit the number of students in the library to 3 at a time (maybe 4 if one student is browsing). Not bad for a little time and some scrap fabric.

.

Another perk is that they conveniently stack up so that they are out of the way if more floor space is needed (sorry about the sideways picture).

.

Now that things are beginning to come together (and pile up) in my house, I feel the pressure to get into my new classroom so that I can store all of this stuff elsewhere!