Rethinking my classroom library

One daunting summer task on my never-ending to do list is to tackle the garage--I mean really get in there and get rid of organize a lot of stuff that's accumulated over the years. 

We spent a good part of an afternoon in there and we made quite a dent...

Now, I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this...

how does organizing a garage have anything to do with a classroom library?! 

Let's backtrack a few years when I had to move my classroom across the hall to a much smaller room. I had to downsize a lot of my stuff, like bookshelves and bins upon bins of books. So I brought them home and they lived in my garage...

Until the garage clean-up of 2017,  where I met my books again...

and I remembered why I bought them and why I organized them in the most specific of categories.

You see, the past few years, I've lost focus...

my classroom libraries have looked like these...

the focus is more on the levels...so what message am I sending the kids as they search through their leveled basket? That the letter on the basket is more important than you becoming a reader...

A reader...a person who picks up a book because you want to experience the adventure with Crispin or find out the backstory between Ally and Shay. A person who knows that reading is a ticket...a ticket to elicit change...change in yourself, in your community, even your life. 

With that, I'm rethinking my classroom library....

to show that building a reading life is important...

and that the READER is valued, not the letter on the basket.