Book Room Revival!

The EBR or Elementary Book Room, for grades 3-5 has had a facelift...so many new books had been purchased that we needed to organize the book room to allow teachers to find titles quickly and with a focus on genre, level and strategy instruction. With input and help from staff members, the book room was organized with the demands for more informational text in mind. Now non-fiction/informational text can be found when you open the door, organized by science (green bins in most cases) and social studies (usually blue). There is a separate section just for biographies! All titles have been sorted by publisher and/or series, making it easier to go through each bin because the books in the bins are the same size (especially the ones of the bottom row!). The fictional titles are also sorted by publisher and series and then by realistic fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, and so on. Reader's theater and plays, along with folk tales and tall tales are stored in a book shelf near the window. The shelves across from the windows house mentor texts and other fictional series. The books we received for participating in the trial last year remain in those shelves. An additional shelf is on order for our growing library. More fictional series and chapter books are stored in the closets and shelves against the inner wall. There are many popular series of books to choose from, especially at levels M-P.


Teachers will use shelf markers with their names on them (like the ones used in the Primary Book Room) to mark the spot when they borrow a set of books. These laminated markers will be color coded by grade level and teacher and laminated. Some sets of books remain bagged by set, while others have been placed in the bins without a bag. We'd like to hear from you as to what you think works best. It would be helpful if you could take time during the first two days of school to provide feedback on the new arrangement, as nothing is permanent yet! The labels are all temporary, awaiting your final approval before we print them on card stock and laminate them. If we decide not to put all of the books back in their bags, we WILL place the teacher guide in front of each set of books, helping to separate one set of books from another. Once we have determined that the books are set up to your satisfaction we will enlist the help of parent volunteers to add each title to the Destiny database (as promised what seems like so long ago) which will allow you to search for titles by genre, GR level and lexile level.

Your feedback is important. After visiting the book room please stop by and share your thoughts, send me an email, or enter your suggestions on this form.