At the Beginning

I have been a teacher for 3 years, but now have the privilege of starting my "first" year teaching my own class of 5th graders.  I have been a long term substitute in four different classrooms during this time and have even set up one of those classrooms.  Take a look at a picture from that room below.

For the last several weeks, I have been busy moving into and setting up my own classroom.  It has been a lot of work.  After three weeks of moving in and unpacking, my stuff is almost all put away and organized.  Take a look at my library area before below (with the books that came with my classroom - back wall in the picture).

I had to merge my books with all of the books that came with the classroom.  The previous teacher had put the books on the shelves like they are in the picture above.  I love having my books in bins and organized by genres.  So, I spent several days working on the books.  I decided to start there because it seems like it is the biggest job of setting up a classroom (and really took the most time).  I bought these great black bins at Target for all of my books.  I will soon have labels on the bins for the genre's.  Take a look at my organized classroom library below.

My non-fiction books are on a separate shelf off to the side (not in bins - too many!).  They didn't all fit on my built in shelves.

I organize my books by genre instead of reading levels because I want my students to be able to identify what books are a good fit for them anywhere they go.  I am planning on starting the school year with lessons on how to pick a just right book.  We will also be setting reading goals for the year during the first few weeks to go along with book selection.  In the picture above, my top two shelves are too high up for my students to reach, so I put books on display there with storage behind them.

Setting up a classroom has so many different aspects to focus on.  My classroom library was where I started and the room immediately felt more put together.  More to come soon about other parts of my classroom.