I am a music teacher who loves books. I love finding different ways that I can incorporate children’s books into my lessons. As a result, not only do I have an extensive collection of books, but my collection of books is always growing.
I’ve had my books semi organized for years, but in order to maintain this loose organization, I’d usually pull all of my books out and resort them at least twice a year…. otherwise I couldn’t ever find anything. I have also tried to organize my books by type and have actually managed to put stickers on them before, but because the spines of the books are so narrow, my stickers just fell off. When a job isn’t done so that the work will last for at least a little while then it really isn’t done correctly and causes more work for me…..This last fall I began planning and collecting materials to do a GOOD job! Finally this spring, I did a HUGE reorganization. Reorganizing your library is not for the faint of heart because it takes some real time and effort, but I think I’ve finally got things settled into a system that I can use and maintain while giving my students free access to my library.
When things are all said and done, I still have some work to do on my class library because I need some more of those wonderful Lakeshore containers and labels, but with a little time and help from my mom who recently retired from working at a library, we were able to get the lionshare of the the organizing done.
In terms of supplies, here is what I used:
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| Lakeshore Help yourself book boxes – provided by donorschoose.org |
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| Lakeshore 3 5/8″ x 3 5/8″ Labeling Pockets – provided by donorschoose.org |
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| white mailing labels – surplus labels that I re-purposed for this project |
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| Assorted Sharpie Markers – I already had a wide variety of these on hand. |
- Author Studies – I have several sets of books all written by the same author. John Lithgow, John Denver, Woody Guthrie, etc….
- Composer Biographies – Beethoven, Brahms…..etc….
- Chapter books
- Christmas
- Dance, Ballet, Movement –
- Education Through Music – Books that contain illustrated re-tellings of songs that are in the ETM repertoire
- Favorites – books that I love!
- Fiction – traditional story books that I either read outright or that students are free to read
- Folk Songs – Books that contain illustrated re-tellings of Folk songs that are not in the ETM repertoire
- Halloween
- Holidays – small holidays that for which I don’t have many books….Valentines, St. Patrick’s
- Jazz – Books that contain either Jazz music, style, historical or reference information about Jazz
- Just Add Instruments –Books that we accompany on instruments
- Math – books about fractions that I use with music
- Musician Biographies – Buddy Holly, Stevie Wonder, Celia Cruz…etc
- Musical Reference – books about instruments, musical anthologies
- Musical Works – books that illustrate major musical works…. Carnival of the Animals, Peter & the Wolf, Pictures at an Exhibition…etc.
- Non-Fiction – biographies of famous non-musicians, language books, books about different countries,
- Patriotic – Books that contain either the song or historical information about patriotic music
- Popular Songs – On top of Spaghetti, Wheels on the Bus, Going on a Bear Hunt….etc
- Science of Sound – books that I use to as reference for teaching about the science of sound
- Texas Music – books about Texas or songs that I use as part of our Go Texas unit
- Thanksgiving
- Visual Arts – Books that create a strong link between visual arts and music, My many colored days…etc
- World Music – stories and songs from around the world
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| We cut white labels to make book spine labels. The symbol on the spine of the book matches the label on the basket. Each label is covered with mailing tape. |
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| This symbol was changed because brown is too close to black and we had pink stickers |
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| I am going to replace these boxes that I got at the dollar store because they are too small to hold picture books |
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| I look forward to purchasing more bins because the Lakeshore book bins fit best. Maybe someday I’ll even get to replace my very sad looking shelf! |
I'd love to know what books you have in your library and how you use this in class.
Thanks for asking Pam! My book lists are a great place to start because I started creating my recommendation lists based on my favorites.
http://melodysoup.blogspot.com/p/books-lists-for-music-teachers.html
Occasionally there will be a book on my list that I don't yet own, but that is rare.
Each book list is from a blog entry… but I noticed (just now) that I need to add links back to those posts because those posts are where I give a general outline of how I typically use the books.
You might want to also check out my Yummy Book awards for individual titles. Again, I've found that I need to do a better job of linking back to the original post for each book 🙂
I intend to keep adding books from my collection as well as ways that I use the books with children.
For now I'll say that sometimes the books are the frosting on a lesson and sometimes the books are the cake. 🙂 I hope you enjoy!
Pam – one more thing! As far as how I anticipate using my newly organized library with students this year remains to be determined. I have not ever had a library organized well enough to allow for successful student access until now. I look forward to experimenting with procedures this year and reporting on how things go.