Sorting/Organizing Children's Books

[SparklingGemini]

How do you do it?!

We have SO many children's books. I used to be a preschool teacher and a nanny, so that combined with my love of children's books, means a blessing of books.

As a matter of fact, we just purchased another bookshelf for DD's books because the overflow from her first one was too much!

But sorting them? on the shelves? I'm kind of stuck.

Do I just not worry about them? Should I organize them by theme? Size? Alphabetical order?

What do you do?

I feel like I need a plan, so as DD ages, books of certain subjects are easier to find. Especially since I'm considering one of the literature based curricula, like Sonlight or Winter Promise.

I'm just at a loss...

[ohiomommy1122]

this is what we do I have a book shelf in her room a small one that she has her favs in and some age approprite ones also she goes through them so much that they are never organized but at least she uses them.

Books that are much to old for her I have packed away for now

books that are close to her age level and maybe longer read a loud type book I have upstair in our hallway with a 2 other bookshelves I used to have them organized by theme BUT my 2 yr old is al;ways rearranging them now

[Mama Rana]

OMG, you totally read my mind.

Ok, here is what I've done in the past, but I'm not sure about continuing in the future. When I was a school teacher, I had my books sorted sorta by topic into magazine carrols, so all the books about Fall were in one, another had books about winter holidays, etc. But some defied categorization, or fit into multiple categories, so then what? And also, it discourages browsing, so my kids can't really take advantage of the wealth.
So then I keep thinking maybe I should just divide, fiction & non-fiction, then categorized like a library? Or just all mixed together and alphabetical by author?

[karemore]

We've always used baskets in addition to shelves. RIght now we have a wicker basket full of the Magic School Bus in the living room. Last winter that basket held the dinosaur books. Whatever major phase we're going through is in the basket easy to grab.

I store holiday books away with the holiday stuff so they don't take up precious space on shelves. So in a month or so when I pull out the fall bin I'll find all our Halloween and Thanksgiving books and decorations. The books will go in a basket in the living room. Then when they get put away the Christmas books will go in, then Valentine's then Easter.

I have a high shelf where I keep the "classic" picture books that I don't want to get damaged. Blueberries for Sal, Caps for Sale, books I plan to keep.

Below that shelf are all the step into reading books, Disney princess, Arthur, fancy nancy....I do keep character books together, so DD can pull out all the Curious George books or whatever she's looking for.


Chapter books are all kept together and organized by series, Classics are kept together.

Non fiction books are kept on the "homeschool" bookcase. I have textbooks and workbooks and puzzle books sorted by grade or age. Then all the other non fiction books are sorted into math, science, language art, and social studies. Craft books, music books etc are shelved here too.

I also have a smaller bookcase in the room we use for "school". That's where I keep the atlas, dictionary, encyclopedias and any non fiction books we'll be using now. I don't have to sort through the big bookcase every time we start a new topic, I've already pulled out all the age appropriate books and put them into the classroom. As we outgrow a book, then it goes into the book donation box.

Spanish books and german books are in my office on a shelf.

DD has a bookself in her room. Those are some of her favorite books that she's outgrown but still likes to read to herself. And random books she's picked out at booksales or yard sales that I'm not crazy about.

We currently have all our bookshelves at capacity, and I don't have room for another bookcase. We'll be putting out a few more wicker baskets until I figure out something creative.

[violet]

our system has grown organically and is as much based on ease of clean up as well as ease of finding books. I organize by the book size and appearance. So I have one shelf of those squarish paperbacks, one for the Dr'Seuss shaped hardbacks, oversized hardbacks on another, etc. Nonfiction and boyish car-truck books are on another bookshelf. Homeschool nonfiction topics are with my homeschool stuff.

I periodically go through and tidy and pull out books I haven't read in awhile and would like to read to have near our reading area. I also rotate out books in the kids rooms on their shelves of bedtime type books. Sounds busy, but I only do that a couple times a year. The kids have a basket near the shelves where they place books when done -- I tend to be the one to re-sort and tidy the shelves. We generally can find books easily because we can remember the size and shape of the book we seek and find the right shelf -- so we only have to look through one shelf. And when I tidy I just gather the paperbacks and slide them back on the the right shelf in any order. Hardbacks, slide over, stack, done. Otherwise I'd drive myself crazy reshelving 20-30 books in different categories at the end of the day.

Happy reading!

[shoefairy3]

a couple times a year I reorganize, but it gets messy very fast
I organize into the following categories
*chapter books
*easy readers
*picture books
*schooly text books
*work books
*our Southwestern Books
*referernce books
*non-fiction books

[Stacey B]

Right now we have four different things happening with our books. First we have the absolute favorites on a shelf in the living room where we can grab them any time. Second, in ds room there is a shelf for all the rest of the picture books, rhymes and song books. Third is our homeschooling shelves which include books and materials by subject. So the books about volcanoes are with the science stuff and the alphabet books are with the reading and writing stuff. Fourth is the homeschooling books for the grownups which are on their own shelf with the gardening and parenting books.

We tend not to buy too many books ourselves. Our library is amazing, but if we find ourselves taking the same book out over and over I'll get a copy. So I guess our fifth book holder is the canvas basket (giant) that holds all the library books.

[elus0814]

Our books seemed to be pulled out and put back every which way so it doesn't seem worth it to have too much organization.

Right now each of the two older kids has a small bookshelf in their room with all sorts of things mixed together. There is also a large bookshelf in the living room. The top shelf is a stack of homeschool workbooks and everyday papers, a stack of educational dvds, a set of mcguffy (I think) readers (they are the 1800's ones), two sets of bob books, a few other primer readers, and our math u see dvds/cd. The second shelf is 1/3 or so grown up books that my husband and I are currently reading with the rest board books, this is the only shelf the one year old is allowed to get into and they are generally all pulled out daily. The third shelf is paper page story books and highlights magazines. The bottom shelf is homeschooling books, folders of completed work, dover coloring books, old and upcoming workbooks, and a few catalogs.

[sbgrace]

I don't think this is what you're looking for but we've also got a "blessing" of books thanks to a generous grandparent. It's an overwhelming amount honestly but all of them are good. So I have six sets of books. One set at a time is on shelves in the playroom. Then the others are on their own shelves in out of the way locations (three on a bookshelf in my son's room and two on high bookshelves in the playroom). Spines are out so I can see a particular book if we want to use it if it has a spine. But otherwise we read the books in the current "rotation" and when we've read them all we want I rotate a new "current" set. I then go through the set I'm "putting up" and cull any we've outgrown or didn't enjoy reading anymore.

I really love this system because rotating sets is so much fun for all of us. It's like brand new books almost. Rotation day is exciting! And before I started rotating (about two years ago or more--this is a "working" system for us) we had so many books that I felt we didn't really enjoy them fully because so many got lost in the shuffle. It was just an overwhelming amount of books so this works better. Right now my sets are a bit too big I may have to make a new set.

If I wanted I suppose I could make a list of the books in particular rotations by categories so that if I couldn't locate a particular book by spine it would be easy to narrow it to manageable set location at least. My categories right now might be: board books, chapter books by series/author, classic picture books (Make Way for Ducklings, Ferdinand, etc. types), nonfiction, fiction by author for books like Frog and Toad, Little Bear, Suess, Kim Lewis, Jan Brett, etc., Magic Schoolhouse, and maybe others by topics with books in above categories cross referenced. I think it would be easier to manage a list for reference compared to trying to get my kids to manage keeping their books in any semblance of organized order on the shelves. I can't imagine any type of complicated system being maintained well by them. We might be able to manage hard back books with spines, chapter books, soft books without spines, board books type categories but I'm not sure that would be particularly helpful in finding our books. We do keep board books in a basket on the bookshelf but we rarely read them anymore and they are mostly ones I can't bear to let go because of memories attached for us.

[AAK]

I have a couple of raingutter bookshelves that I put roughly 30-40 books on at a time. Below those we have bins for board books. In the closet we have bins for the rest of the picture books. They are always accessable--BUT, I rotate them with the raingutter shelves. I keep current favorites on the shelves and rotate the rest. I try to make sure certain books are out during certain times of the year.

For the chapter books and read alouds, we use a bookshelf. I haven't found bookshelves to be very user friendly for the picture books.

Amy