I have a personal or classroom library. So far it has about 400 books, plus some that I have in group sets (5 of each). We also have an excellent school library (and librarian), from which our students are able to check out books. I've kind of been wondering, is it necessary to have a classroom library when we have such a good one at school? It does take up a fair amount of my (small) room space. The students love it, and a huge part of me wants to surround them with wonderful books.... A tangential questions - those of you with the huge classroom libraries - do you have a good school library, and how do you balance the two? My kids get to go to the school library once per week - as an enrichment, or special.
My classroom library is about 4,000 books. However, my school has been in a remodeling/addition process for the school building for the past year (we're adding on even more this summer), so we did not have a functional school library all year. We're supposed to have a library up and running next year, but I'll still have my classroom library--because it just seems so much more convenient (we don't get library as a special). Plus, it's useful for "book shopping" for daily 5.
I wouldn´t be able to function without mine, though it is much, much smaller than yours. My kids read so much during the day, I just don´t see how they could do that if I didn´t have a classroom library for them. Plus, my kids are limited to checking out one book at a time from our school library.
We have a wonderful library, not-so-wonderful librarian, but not the worst either. But I have a huge classroom library. Reasons: 1. Kids can only take 1 library book out at time. I prefer them to have a number of books (depending on their level) at a time. 2. I'm not with them in the library to monitor what books they're selecting. They often come back with books way off what level they're read. 3. My kids didn't have library as a special this year. When they don't they can visit the library to borrow books, but that would have taken up a significant amount of class time.
Lucky you, TamiJ - my first graders weren't allowed to check books out at all from the school library - that's one reason I had to make my own! Now that I'm in third, they can check out - just not sure how many. I'll probably keep my library up & running - for me personally, it's like hugging the kiddos with books - does that make sense?
I would never get rid of my classroom library...not only for my love of books, but my kids read independently during reader's workshop every day, so they need books for that. Plus my kids love to read silently when they've finished their work. Our school library is pretty good, but my kids only take 1-2 books out at a time and only go every 6 school days.
Yes- I think it's really important to build their love of reading and that's not going to happen with 1 trip to the library the week. But when they see all the books you own and you can point out a few and be like, "I loved this one." "I read this one as a kid." It definitely creates excitement around the books which is the first step to making them avid readers.
Definitely! My kids loved sharing what they liked about books in our room...then they would argue over who could read it next! lol
We're actually required to have classroom library. We have a wonderful librarian, but like everything else, her budget keeps getting sliced. So I try to provide more of the high-interest, popular books in my classroom.
We have a great school library, which the kids visit once per week. They can check out 3 books. My classroom library contains around 2,000 books. I encourage my students to take their school library books home, but they can keep them in the classroom if they would like to. I do not allow them to take classroom library books home.
Really?? How sad for them...And what is that saying about promoting literacy? Hopefully that will change in the future.
I really feel like buying more books for my own class library now. I need to beef it up. We´ve just had a lot of expenses recently so that makes it tough.
I am a school librarian with one year experience after teaching in the classroom. I am currently trying to encourage and collect donated books for my colleagues' classroom libraries. Why? Many of the reasons were mentioned already. The primary reason is that access to books is so, so important. My PK and K students are allowed to check out 1 book, first and second graders start at 1 and get up to 3, Third-Fifth can check out 5. We have an extremely undersized library, but I make it work. Even with these limits, classroom libraries allow more access to books. As you all know, research shows access to be a big part of reading success). Classroom libraries allow students to share and revisit favorites. Children really appreciate familiarity. If space is an issue, maybe you can rotate them out every month or so.
We have a wonderful school library with fabulous librarians. My students can go once a week and sign out 2 books each. They take these books home or keep them in their desk. I also have a well stocked classroom library so they can regularly go 'book shopping' for their book bins or pull out a book when they are finished their assigned task. This also gives me access to all the read alouds I use throughout the year.
No class library that I keep in the room. Waste of space and time for me. I have students check out 4-6 books from our library(its really good) every other week. If students are finishing their books, I just have them check out more the next time we go. I try to reduce the times spent going to the library.
I have literally thousands of books in my classroom library and a great school library. My classroom books are leveed and are the backbone of my readers workshop/literacy instruction. Kids 'shop' for independent reading daily in my room. My students go to our library/media center once a week. Our librarian does lessons with them and they check out two books. I don't really monitor what they take out from school library but in my classroom I do. Our library also serves as a tremendous resource for classroom teachers...I'll check out a TON of books during some units: biographies, myths and folk tales, etc.
