I had been researching different ways to organize my classroom library since the summer started, and when I finished buying my books at the awesome library sale a few weeks ago, I knew it was time to get started organizing!
I used Scholastic's website to level my books, and for the ones that didn't come up, I researched around on the Internet. I decided to label the letter of the guided reading level on front of the library pocket. On the index card, I wrote the title, author, genre, and level as well. This way when kiddos check out the books and place the card in their reading notebooks, they can record what genres and levels they are reading as well!
I also used the star stickers to categorize my books by genre. If worse comes to worse and a kiddo finds a book without an index card on the ground, they can flip open the cover and see what color star the book has. Then, they can determine which genre the book belongs in! My stickers for each genre are as follows (I will hang these charts up in my classroom by my library):
I wanted to include and "Award-Winners" category as well as a category for the Missouri Mark Twain award books because those tend to be high-interest for kids. I couldn't bear to write "Horror" as a a category, so I used "Creepy" instead.
After the first hour, I had only finished this pile of books (oh brother):
I also am fortunate to have about 12 different literature sets of Mark Twain Award books from the past two years (thanks to my awesome librarian friend Julie). I can group my students in groups of 3-5 and have them read the same awesome books, and will have enough to switch them around throughout the year! I'm excited!