A better bookshelf....

I taught first grade for several years in public school.  That meant I had a well-organized, genre-sorted classroom library.  Each genre (fiction, fairy tales, ABC, series, non-fiction, etc.) had a color-coded dot and a certain area that each genre was filed in our classroom library.

I also have a LOT of books from my teaching days and just because we love books.

I had previously had all our books stored on a big shelf in my studio by previously mentioned genre.  Except that I didn't let the kids have free reign of the bookshelf because they aren't allowed in the studio without me (it can be pretty crazy messy in there and lots of sharp scissors/needles/craft knives, etc.).  Also I didn't love them messing up my organization.

But this mean we weren't really using all our great books.

So I decided we needed a change.

First off, we had a little spot at the end of the hall right by their rooms.  We found a shelf (after several tries) that we already owned that would fit perfectly in this spot.  I ended up putting all our fiction books here, in no particular genre order (ouch....it was hard, but I did it!), merely organized by hardbacks and paperbacks (and this mostly to keep sizes working with the various shelves).

For now this method of organization is enough for my kiddos.  Somewhere down the line we might get more specific, but they are able to keep up with this.  And if I really want a certain book it's not THAT big of a deal to thumb through all the books.

We have another shelf in the hall for non-fiction, which I need to get a photo of, huh!

It has been so much better to have our books out in plain sight and available to the kiddos!  We are reading way more of them.

I also moved all our board books to Beck's bedroom bookshelf, and I find him every morning curled up on his blanky at the floor beneath his bookshelf reading through his books.  We've moved to reading mostly picturebooks to him for read-alouds, but he still likes his boardbooks for personal reading time.

I wish I would have made this change ages ago.  It works so well to have ALL our books together, organized simply, and looking nice!!

How do you organize your books?