Jungle Reading Nook

Well the past two days have been busy, busy. I have been working hard on my classroom and have the pictures to prove it.

This is the before picture of what is slated to become my jungle reading nook. Take special notice of how bland it is, the lovely old orange chair, etc.

And this is the after picture... doesn't it look sooo much better??? And did you get a good look at that styling chair? Yep, that is the same orange chair, greatly transformed.


I am so excited to continue transforming my classroom into a jungle room.



In addition to decorating, I have been busy organizing my student library and my teacher library. I wish I could share before pictures but I didn't really take any. My books were just a bit of a mish-mash. I tried to categorize but they ended up everywhere. So when I wanted a particular book it meant I had to look through baskets of books. In an earlier post I had talked about the new system I am using called Classroom Organizer. And I still can't say enough about it. I love it and yes, it is free.

Here are a couple of after pictures.

This is part of my student library. Each basket has it's own sign with a distinctive and unique picture that corresponds with the picture of the labels of each book that belongs in that basket. By doing this even my non-readers will be able to independently select a book from our library and return it without assistance. And if something does get returned to the wrong basket, it will be easy to spot.

This is a picture of one of the basket signs.

And this picture shows the label on the back of one of the books that belongs in that basket.

This is how I have organized my teacher library. I like the idea of using the folding baskets (in my school colors) because these are not books that my students will be selecting from so this keeps them out of sight, out of mind while allowing easy access for me. And I think it presents a less 'noisy' view. This is especially important for some of my students who can be over-stimulated by too much visual noise in the room.

Sometimes I want to 'close' the library off to students. I use the library itself to accomplish this. I am able to easily swing the racks so that it closes the reading nook and library off. This is important during classes where other students come into my room for specific instruction in communication. This way they are not as distracted by the cool reading nook.

This pictures show the racks. They are on wheels and I use velcro ties to hold one rack to the other so that I can swing both simultaneously.






I still have much work to complete before I am ready for students, but I feel like I have a good start at least. So I am off to cover 2 more chairs with my hubby. Thank goodness for him... he has the know-how and the tools to help me accomplish all my crazy ideas. But remember to stay 'Wild About School' :)

Organizing My Books

Everyone on the blogs I have been reading are 'buzzing' about organizing the classroom. Well, I thought I would put my two cents in.

I decided this was the year I was going to get my classroom library organized. The best solution I found was a free web based and/or iPhone app called Classroom Organizer.
This app allowed me to scan my books' ISBN barcodes and it automatically scanned the book information into a database. Some of the books I had did not have ISBN barcodes or it would not read them for some reason, but that is ok because I could manually enter these as well a most other information it did not automatically put in.

After your initial login, there are separate areas, one for teachers and one for students. The area for teachers requires an additional password to get to so students are NOT able to accidentally wander into this section and change things up on you.


Did I mention it is free?

This is a view of the teacher area. Here you can set up & manage specific features for your library, add, delete or edit titles within your library, add, delete or edit students in your class, view checkout history for individual students, & select from student or library reports to understand the reading habits & book inventory in your library.

Did I mention it is free?

Once I was all done, I then went to the web based login, went into the teacher section and exported an excel file that had all my book information in it.



Did I mention it is free?

With this I used my handy dandy Dymo Label Maker and created labels for each book.






Did I mention it is free?

Now, each book is categorized and can be checked out and back in again with... yep, you guessed it... my Classroom Organizer on the computer. I also like that I can add information on each book like Location, AR Points, Interest & Lexile Level, Fiction/Non-Fiction, page & word counts, etc.

Did I mention it is free?

This is the student page. From here they can click on either Check Out or the Return buttons.






Did I mention it is free?

The Check Out button takes them to a page that allows them to look for their name and/or picture.






Did I mention it is free?

After they click on their names, they can opt to view Book List or to type in an ISBN (like they would know that) or keywords. Then they click finish and they have successfully checked out a book. To return it they just do the same process but click on Return instead of Check Out.

Did I mention it is free?


My only complaint would be that it does not allow to manually put in an image of the book. It either grabs one in the entry process or it just doesn't have one. I hope in the future it allows you to manually upload one.

When I go back to school next week I will take some pictures of my library and post them so you can see what it looks like. Hope you enjoyed and remember to stat 'Wild About School!'