Books, Books, and More Books!!!

Whew, this has been such a busy summer.  I have three kids ages 6,5, and 4 and I have always looked forward to the summers when they are older because they will be easier than when they were smaller.  I am pleased that summer time is getting easier with my kids, but now it is just getting busier!  Not to mention we started our summer off with my 4 year old breaking her arm!  I had such high hopes for my summer and getting ahead of the game with teachers pay teachers stuff, book organizing, and blogging.  So today, I decided I would start with one of those chores.  Book organizing and leveling.  With the adoption of both the common core and readers workshop, one goal I set for myself was to completely level my classroom library.  My mom and I began this arduous process last summer and got a lot of the way through!  Unfortunately, I did not keep the work up during the school year and I am still NOT DONE!  I want to go into the school year organized and ready for all of my books to be in the hands of my students.  I first had to choose a leveling system for me.  I got my inspiration from Beth Newingham HERE.  That woman is amazing!  I made my own colors and got tons of baskets.  Now I am onto looking up my books on Scholastics' Book Wizard tool.  While I was perusing Pinterest the other day, I came across a pin for Classroom Booksource.  Have you all seen this website!?!?!

 It is absolutely amazing.  On the website you can type in the ISBN numbers of your books and it will add the book to your classroom library.  You can choose the information you want listed with the book.  Guided Reading level, AR book, ect.  For some they already have the Guided Reading level listed, others you may have to add yourself.  So I have just had both classroom booksource and book wizard up at the same time.  They also have an APP for your smart phone that allows you to SCAN the barcode of your books and add it to your classroom library!  AMAZING!!!  The really cool thing is that it gives you the option of choosing a location of the book.  So I can put the basket that the book is housed in.  As it compiles the library it makes it possible for you to use the site as a check out and check in system.  You can add a list of students names.  You can also put requirements for check out.  How many they can check out at a time, a required review at time of check in.  It tracks the check outs as well, so you can see the types and levels of the books your kids are checking out.  I am really excited about this new program.  So today while my kids were doing this...  I got this done...


It is going to take lots of time, but I think if I do several baskets a day, it will fly by!  While I was doing it today, I thought I'd jump on here and let you all know about it as well!  Happy Book Leveling!

Juli