I started my summer “to-do” list yesterday- don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about! All teachers have a list of “school stuff” they want to accomplish during the summer. One of the items on my list was to update some info on my classroom library page. One of the reasons this topic is on my mind is because I *may* be getting my own classroom next year to use as a model and if I do, I want to create a top notch classroom library in it. I already have plenty of books, I just need to create an inviting space. I have been pouring over the pages of Spaces & Places: Designing Classrooms for Literacy
One of the ideas I added to the library page was in the “Where do you get books for your classroom library?” section. I highly recommendebay and Craig’s Listif you’re looking to build a classroom library. I have found incredible deals on books from teachers who were retiring or changing grades and have listed their books on Craig’s List. Ebay ranks a close runner up for book deals too, but be careful on the shipping costs. If you’re interested in building your classroom library summer is the right time to do it; all the teachers are out of school and they have time to hold their sales. Hurry- don’t miss out on the deals!
I also added info about Library Thing to the classroom library page. I love Library Thing, it has really helped me stay organized. I used it this year even though I didn’t have a classroom. When teacher’s would ask for book recommendations for certain themes or topics I would just give them a link to my Library Thing and they could look up the info there. A few librarians wanted to stock their campus libraries with more pre-k friendly titles so I gave them links to my Library Thing as well. If I needed a book for a model lesson but I wasn’t sure if I owned it or not I could easily and quickly look it up on Library Thing. There’s a widget here on the blog that will also take you to my Library Thing. For those of you who don’t know what Library Thing is it’s an on-line database where you can list all of your books, but that description doesn’t really do it justice, it’s so much more than that so check it out and see for yourself.
Any other tips or recommendations for building classroom libraries? Good deals on books? I would love to hear from you!
Announcing Pre-K Pages Conference for Early Childhood Educators, July 15th, Plano, TX. Earn 6 hours of CPEcredit. Attend a full-day workshop with Pre-K Pages and rekindle your passion for teaching! See you there 🙂
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Did you happen to use the cuecat to enter your books? I have over 1000 books that need cataloged and this looks like the most efficient way. The books are in the school library and at this time we have no electronic tracking system, just paper. I am hoping this site will allow all of the teachers to access our book inventory in a more practical way.
Thanks!
Yes, I did use the cuecat to enter most of my books. But be careful, if you have any scholastic books that are older than a few years. I have collected my books over the course of 16 years and I found that the softcover Scholastic books over 2 years old did not have barcodes on them. It’s not hard to enter them by hand though, it’s just an extra step.
Thank you! I have joined and am going to oder the cuecat. Thank you for sharing all of your great resources!
I never thought of putting my classroom library on Library Thing! What a great idea — thank you!
I just found this site so I don’t know if you’ll see this but… Check the Scholastic web site to see if they are having a warehouse sale. If you live anywhere near on it is worth going. They open up the cases that have come back from book fairs and sell what’s left at a great discount. They also give you access to much of the stuff on the warehouse shelves and often have a section of really cheap books. Watch out. It can be kind of addictive. And don’t take your grandchildren. It will cost you a tidy sum if you do.