Organized Read Aloud Books

I finally took the time today to put a dent into my Summer To Do list.  (Found here.)  Seeing as the weather is stifling and I already have a painfully, itchy burn from laying on the beach too long this past weekend, it's the perfect day to stay in my AC filled apartment.

I worked on organizing my read aloud books today.  I can already sense how much easier this organizing will make my teaching this coming year.  I heard somewhere the following quote:

 "Organization makes a good teacher into a great teacher"

That is my motivation for this long process of organizing :)

I went from a small basket of squished books to a filing box big enough for my books and many more:

Below is the end result of my organized children's books:

As you can see, I organized my books into months and then topics.  All I used to do so, was a filing box (found at Walmart), dividers, cardstock paper, and clear tape.  I covered my labels with tape as my at home lamination :)

I only ended up having 3 topics apart from my months.  These are Culture, Math, and Science.  (They are not alphabetical in the picture, but I have organized them alphabetically.)

While some books don't really fall into a specific time of year or those certain topics, I put them in the month that I plan on using them in.  As I get more books, I am sure I will need to add more specific topics.  However for now, this works perfectly for what I need.

I am now working on lesson plans and activities for each book.  I will put a copy of each plan in each book, and I will also make a binder of the plans.  Stay tuned for lesson plan ideas for read alouds!

Thanks for stopping by! :)