Is It Possible to Organize Your Children's Books?

Yes, you can get organized.

If books are being read, you'll have to be flexible about your organization system. The picture you see above is a day of returning books to the basement. I'm organized but not too organized. Take what you can from how I try to stay organized. Everyone has to come up with a system that works for their own family.

There is a table in our livingroom for school library books and books I'm reading to my kids. When my children were younger I read three books a night, one for each child. We had a tub with books that were the right length for bedtime stories. The books in the tub were a combination of books I chose and books my children chose.

We keep a tub for public library books on the bottom shelf of a bookcase in our livingroom.







My children have a box of books next to their beds. We just went through the boxes a few days ago. They searched our collection of books in the basement and went through some books I purchased at a used book store to add new ones to their boxes. They kept some of their favorites for rereading. When they were younger most of the books were ones we read together once, and they reread for practice. They all seem to like reading new books now. Rereading books helped my children become fluent readers and improve decoding skills.

These are the books my children chose for their boxes recently.

It helps to have quick access to books a child has chosen and will enjoy reading. I make sure the books are at or below my children's reading level.


 

I organize some books in magazine boxes. I either write on the box or use a name tag for a label. The labels I have in use now are Eric Carle, Mercer Mayer, Berenstain Bears, Magic School Bus, Franklin, Clifford, Super Heros, Space, Sports, Halloween, Christmas, Snow, Colors, ABC's, Numbers, Animals Primary, Animals Intermediate, Bedtime Stories and Rhyming Books, USA Books, Jokes, Zoo Books, Fairy Tales and Folk Stories, Girl Books, Holidays and Songs, Maps and Travel, Poetry Books, Sea Creatures, Kid Magazines, Searching Books, Science, and Dinosaurs 

Here's the cupboard I keep the magazine boxes.

Each shelf fits two rows of boxes. If there are only four boxes in the front row, it's easy to slide the boxes around to see the labels of the boxes in the back.

Basement Book Shelves:

The top shelf has chapter books. The next shelf has a mix of informational books and biographies. The bottom middle two shelves have some of our favorite books, books that don't fit with a label, and some books that escaped their labeled box. (No problem. Maybe we'll return it to it's box someday.) The bottom shelf has two tubs with board books that can be pulled out for younger visitors. 

The shorter book shelf has two plastic boxes just the right size for chapter books at my children's reading levels grouped by author and a clear plastic tub with books for beginning readers. The bottom two shelves have three tubs for the students I tutor with reading and a tub for books my children have made themselves. (They've just started showing an interest in making their own books. I hope the box keeps them motivated.)

These next three pictures are the tubs of books I use for tutoring. I've given each book a colored circle, so it can be returned to the right box if my children want to read one of these books.

DRA levels 2 - 10 

Green Circle

DRA Levels 12 -20

Yellow Circle

DRA Levels 22 - 30

Red Circle