Organizing Our Books

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Today, I finally got to break into the boxes of school supplies! The main jobs are done, so today I started going through our books while I was waiting for laundry to finish. Since we use a Charlotte Mason inspired approach to language, history, & science at the elementary level our books are probably the most important materials we have.

I have always wanted to figure out how to organize our books better so I could find things more quickly, but the task always seemed overwhelming seeing as we had cases full of books before the fire. Now we have probably less than 50 and they were all off the shelves already so I thought it would be a good time to do some organizing.

I looked at an online cataloging system, but eventually decided on spine labeling. I got a bunch of labeling dots, then made a key for each subject. Different letters and different colors mean different things and a book can have more than one dot. For example a book on animals in Africa would have 2 dots- 1 for Science, and 1 for Geography.

The shelves are fairly empty right now, but I know they will fill up quickly!

3 comments:

Cheryl @ On the Old Path said...

Heidi it was good to hear from you I have been terrible at following blogs lately and I missed the arrival of your beautiful boy Logan. How wonderful and my congrats to you and your family!!!!
Blessings
Cheryl
Oh and I like your new book system:)

Unknown said...

HI!! Thanks for linking up!
You are much braver than I am. All those dots would confuse the heck out of me! :) I would just put them by subject- or kid... or size or color- whatever struck me at the moment! :)
Check back next week for our curriculum post! I would love to see what you are using!
Tiffany @ HGF

Joelle said...

Wow, so detailed! I admire you. I would not have the patience to do that. I wish you a great year!