My Classroom Library - a peek inside!

As I was doing my end-of-the-week tidy up yesterday afternoon I snapped a few photos of my classroom library to share with you all.  Hopefully you'll find a few easy ideas that you can use to organise yours or to help your kidlets become excited about reading!

First up, let's talk about how I organise my books.  I know it's not perfect, but I wanted there to be some order so that kidlets could make informed decisions about the books they choose for their book box - and I wanted to scaffold their choice of a 'best fit' text. 

One shelf holds our levelled readers, organised into baskets of 2 levels.  For this term, I have been choosing these books for kidlets - explaining that I'm giving them 1 book at their level, 1 that's easy practise and 1 that's more of a challenge.  Next term they will have control over these choices.  I was undecided as to whether or not I should display the levels... I didn't want reading to become a competitive sport.  Luckily enough, my Preppies have always been happy to choose their level and not worry what their friends' levels are. :) As these are all school books I can't really re-sticker them with colours etc. so the levels are the easiest for organisation at the moment.

Two other shelves hold our picture books and non-fiction texts. The left shelf has baskets organised by author - Mem Fox, Dr. Seuss, Pamela Allen and Jez Alborough - as well as two baskets of non-fiction.  On the top are pink baskets with Grug and Little Golden Books.  We also have a returns box. Children can choose whichever books they like from here.  It took a few weeks, but they are getting pretty good at leafing through to check and see whether a book is one that interests them rather than grabbing random ones.

Now on to the fun stuff! I have a little collection of tools that my kidlets can choose any time they are reading to help them engage with a book.  Our 'Reading Glasses' are just dollar store sunglasses with the lenses popped out.

'Sight Word Stars' are the newest addition to our library.  I typed our sight words onto some star clipart, laminated and cut them before taping them onto a giant straw (from Ikea!).  Kidlets use these to search for sight words they know in 'tricky' picture books.

We have a variety of pointers to use as well, these really help to ensure that kidlets attend to the text they're reading - particularly in Guided Reading groups.  At the moment I've only got the googly eye sticks out, but now that my clever Preppies are using these responsibly I'll add some new ones next term.  I get everything from the dollar store!

Googly eyes glued to craft sticks.

Magic wand party favours.

Plastic magnifying glasses.

Torches.

Two big containers hold our 'Reading Buddies' and 'Whisper Phones'.  Buddies are available any time kidlets want to read their book aloud.  They never interrupt and are nice to cuddle. :)  I asked parents last year if anyone knew a plumber who could get me cheaper plastic pipes to make Whisper Phones, and was so appreciative when one of my little girl's uncles just went ahead and made them as a donation!  They're two pieces glued together, and I just decorated them with colourful duct tape.

Lucky last - our Book Boxes!!

I used the 100 Scrappy Kids set that Mel (Graphics from the Pond) made to personalise each label.  I chose the scrappy kid that most looked like each kidlet, and we also use the same graphics for desk labels.  Each week we change our books (3 levelled texts and 4-5 other books) to keep for our independent reading time.  At this stage of the year my class can read for 10-15 minutes in silence, which I think is pretty good for Term 1 Preppies! :)

That's all from me today!  Easter holidays are coming up so hopefully I'll have some extra time and energy to post a little more - I have lots of photos of fun activities we've been doing but end of term exhaustion has just kicked my butt.  I really hope you found an idea or two today that you can use, and I promise to be back soon!!

Cheap & Cheerful Tools for Reading FUN!

I looked around my classroom today as my kidlets were busy with their book boxes and it warmed my heart to see them totally engaged with their reading.  All of them - even my tricky characters - had found themselves a comfortable spot and were absorbed in their books.  At that point, I was completely unnecessary to them and it's the happiest I've been in ages. :) I love that my kidlets love to read, but they don't always start the school year out feeling like that.  I thought I'd share a few DIY tools that I use along the way to keep reading fun and motivation high.

Graphics From the Pond and KG Fonts made this quote look cute!

My kidlets keep their books in cardboard magazine files with personalised labels.  They are always excited to choose new books and treat their book box super carefully - the fact that it's theirs helps to make reading time all the more exciting.  Our classroom library is small but choosing books is always fun!  My kidlets choose a combination of levelled readers, picture books and non-fiction books to keep for the week.

Let's start with the basics - everyone knows that to do your very best reading, you need to wear your reading glasses!  Grab yourself some dollar store sunglasses (from the party loot section), pop the lenses out and you've got yourself some colourful specs.

I'm sure you would have seen these guys on Pinterest - Whisper Phones!  You can grab the pieces of pipe from a hardware store, but I put a request out to see if anyone knew a plumber who had offcuts that I could use.  One of my kidlets had an uncle who not only donated the pipes, but glued them together for me! (I sent a photo home to show what I was hoping to make.)  I just added some rainbow duct tape to pretty them up.

These are great to help with fluency and expression during independent reading time - kidlets can hear their voices even if they are whispering and adjust their tone, pace etc. to make their reading 'sound like a story'.

Next up is an easy idea that can end up being completely free!  Reading Buddies are simply cuddly toys that are available for kidlets to read to.  They just love reading a story to a buddy - again, awesome practice for fluency and expression and a real confidence booster for reluctant readers at the beginning of the year.  I sent a note home to parents last year and within a week had more than 25 gorgeous toys donated for the library, some of them brand new. :)

I use a variety of pointers in Guided Reading to help with tracking and place-keeping, as well for kidlets to point to sight words, punctuation, letters etc.  Most of them I bought from the dollar store!

Craft sticks + googly eyes.

Magic wands.

Magnifying glasses.

Small torches.

I hope that you picked up a few ideas to use. :) Do you have any cheap & cheerful reading tools that you like to use in your classroom?  I'd love hear them! 

Five for Friday... Gratitude after a great day. :)

Another Friday... another chance to reflect on the collection of random moments that combined to make a busy week. Thanks to Doodle Bugs for hosting! I had a great day today... maybe the best I've had all year with my tricky bunch of kidlets.  I am feeling very thankful, so my Friday Five has a theme of 'gratitude'. :)

All year I had been wanting to make some 'Whisper Phones' for my kidlets to use during their 'Read to Self' time.  I'd looked into buying the parts at my local hardware store and there was never a week that I could spare the money (who knew plumbing pipes were so expensive?!).  I ended up putting a note on my foyer noticeboard, asking if any dads/grandads/uncles were plumbers, because I had a project I needed help with.  Last Friday, one of my mums said that her brother was a plumber.  I explained the idea of 'Whisper Phones' and showed her a photo, asking her to see if her brother had some pipe offcuts I could maybe use.  On Tuesday morning, this is what she brought in:

Not only had she shown her brother the photo, but he had glued together a set of 10 made from brand new pipes!  I was just amazed and so thankful. :)  A bit of rainbow duct tape later and the kidlets are using them every day to listen to their reading.

Today I am grateful for generous people.

In our Literacy groups this week our phonics revision activity involved searching in rainbow rice for magnetic letters.  

When they found one, kidlets would say the letter name, it's sound/s and name some words with that sound at the beginning, in the middle or at the end.  They would then write the letter underneath the matching picture on their worksheet.  

The beautiful rainbow rice was made last week by on of my parent helpers, and the sensory table was given to me after it was replaced in the Library.  They had been using the centre container to store pencils and didn't even know that it was a supposed to be used as a sensory table (meanwhile I had been coveting it for ages)! :)

Today I am grateful for lovely Mummies who give up their time to help (and also those who allow me to publish photos of their adorable kidlets!), and for working at a school that provides wonderful resources for me to use to help my kids learn.

I jumped on to TpT last night and was prompted to take their survey. One of the questions asked something along the lines of "How has TpT impacted your teaching and the way your children learn?".  It really got me thinking... I stumbled upon the world of teacher bloggers when I was having a year off, working in Canada (selling jewellery) and desperately missing my classroom life.  I jumped on the blogging bandwagon and quickly became obsessed with pinning and reading blogs (as well as writing my own).  Through this, a door opened to, like, a BILLION teaching ideas that I'm sure I would have never come across (see #1 and #2 of this post, for example).  My teaching has been impacted in a huge way - I am constantly inspired and searching for the best way for my kidlets to learn a concept or skill in a way that is engaging for them - and I am proud of the resources I have created as a result.

In my fine motor groups this week I used Link It Up... the precious kidlet in the photo on the left is my bounciest boy and he was engaged for almost 20 minutes (!!) with this activity. This, my friends, is a miracle.

We played Shark! this week in guided reading and it made me so happy to hear the giggles and shouts of  "shark attack!" as each group played.  Mostly though, it warmed my heart to see the looks of pride in my kidlets' faces as they read the CVC words by themselves.

Today I am thankful for inspiration from the teaching community.

When I got home this afternoon there was the most gorgeous bunch of flowers waiting for me on the doorstep!

Today I am thankful that somebody loves me.

It's almost the end of term here - 2 more weeks and we will be halfway through the year!  I love my kidlets, but man-oh-man they are tiring.  :)  It's also report card season... and I have nothing nice to say about them!  I am exhausted...

...but tomorrow I can sleep in!  No alarm, nowhere to be, nothing (well... apart from housework) to do. I saw this picture this week and it made me wonder if Sleeping Beauty was a teacher?

Today I am thankful for silent Saturday mornings.

Well friends, that's all from me.  Today's Five for Friday was really therapeutic for me, so if you've stuck with me to the end, thank you. :)  I really appreciate the lovely friends I've made through the blogosphere. 

Happy weekend!

Lauren