Over the years our collection has grown and so has its need for space. Considering how limited our space is finding an adequate location for the books has been a challenge. Eventually I decided it was necessary to store the majority of the books and have just a small selection of books available at one time.
The predominant issue that this scenario posed was the time it took for me to choose which books to display. Sometimes I would pick out all the books with a common theme like ‘dinosaurs’. We had a lot of dinosaur books and if I had them out then there wasn’t room for any other books so if you didn’t like dinosaurs there were no books for you to read.
Selecting books based on a theme was also a problem for emergent curriculum program since I sorted through and chose the books when the children were not here. Then when they arrived I’d discover that they had a totally different ‘theme’ in mind.
So a couple years ago I spent a weekend sorting and organizing all the books into twelve groups – one for each month. Holiday and seasonal themed books were grouped in their appropriate month. The remaining books were distributed evenly among the months. Each month contains a variety of books – fiction and resource, toddler to school-age, small and large, paperback and hardcover – something for everyone.
When not in use they are stored like this;
Looking up the stairs to the library loft you see a few of the books available;
Up in the loft there is space to relax alone or share a story with a few friends;
There are books outside of the loft too because we know that books are used often during dramatic play and other activities too. There is always a lot of excitement when the new books come out. They bring back memories and ignite new interests.
It always makes me smile when the children hold their books like this;
Ensuring that everyone can see the pictures as you read the story to them and making story time a wonderful socially interactive experience.
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