I live in CT and over the past 4 summers I have made my
rounds to 4 different towns in NY and CT in hopes of finding some new books for my library. From my experience, most of these sales
take place during this time of year so it’s the PERFECT time for teachers to
snatch up some goodies. Most of
these sales last over the course of 3-5 days. Usually day 1 entails paying a $5 cover fee for entry, but I
assure you it’s worth it. I spent
3 hours at my first library book sale, scouring through books and built a
collection of Dr. Seuss, Arthur, and American Girl books in no time. How much were these books? Hard covers were normally ranged
between a wopping $1-$3. That’s
right people, Dr. Seuss books cheaper than your favorite Starbucks latte. Soft covers ranged anywhere from 25 –
75 cents. No one is breaking
their bank here. The crazy part is
that so many of these books were barely used! Tons of donated books were in superb condition ready and
waiting for my little lovebugs to gobble and booger up! On the last day of these
sales they usually offer a $5 bag day, which means that you can stuff a bag
with as many books as possible for only $5. It’s amazing! I use this site to find sales that are going on in the area I am in or areas I am visiting. Some are amazing, and others are okay, so it's a trial-by-error experience. It's well worth it when you hit a super stocked sale!
So because I’ve collected so many books, I quickly ran into
a problem organizing them. Where there’s a problem there is always a solution. I
created book bin labels and coordinating book labels to match a few years ago
and I love it. It’s saved me
countless hours organizing my library. I place a sticker on the back of each
book and students know that they must match the book sticker to the
coordinating book bin with the same visual. It has made my life a MILLION times easier and stress free
because every child knows that each book has its own place. Howeverrrrrr, as my
library has grown the genres and book series have increased so I needed to
update them badly! I’ve spent the
past 3 weeks working on creating a book system that I will NEVER have to update
again! I wanted to have it done
and ready so that if I ever changed from 3rd to another grade level,
I’d have everything ready to go!
So I got to work and created over 380 labels that pair to various genres
and topics of any book collection. Then my OCD kicked in and I decided that I
wanted to make a set of book bin labels that matched my bright neon room scheme
this year, so that’s what I did! I
LOVE them! They came out too cute too boot if you ask me! I realized as I was doing the neon set,
that realistically, I would end up changing my theme again at some point so I
decided to make 3 other options for the book bin labels: chalkboard, swirly
frames, and classic rectangle frames.
Now I wont have to worry about creating these again down the line….EVER :) The hard work creating
them was worth it!
I’m off to do some more wine tasting today! A well deserved reward for working
hard! Wanna win a set? Follow my store here, and the first person to correctly guess where I'll be sipping on some sweet grape juice this weekend will win the set of their choice! Happy Weekend!
Please consider linking this post up to my blog. see more info here. http://2peasandadog.blogspot.ca/2013/08/classroom-library-makeover.html
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I am a major book lover, too. My kiddos love having such a large classroom library at their disposal. My library is definitely in need of an overhaul, but I just haven't decided how I want it organized yet. Decisions, decisions!
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