Decorating My Library: Target Style

I think I have the organization under control in my classroom library. I've got plenty of shelves, colorful little baskets, and labels. However, since I'm moving into a new classroom this year, I'd really like to spruce up the decor in my library. That's where Target comes in!

I found Corduroy on sale in the clearance section for $6.99. I will definitely be adding him to my growing collection of storybook characters that I use to decorate my library shelves.

I absolutely love the classroom library pic posted on Kindergarten Kindergarten's blog, and have been wanting wooden letters to spell the word "READ" on the wall in my classroom library. 

I lucked out and found these fabulous letters in the dollar spot (of course they were $2.50 each instead of a dollar-I always gravitate to the most expensive things in that "dollar" spot!). I hesitated to even share this find since I couldn't find all the letters I needed at my Target and had to beg my mom to track down the letter "E" at her Target (which she did!). You know you're a Target addict when you begin involving family members!

My final find at Target this week was a bit pricey (if I remember correctly it cost $20). I bought these wall stickers that you can stick on your wall to make a tree (the stickers also peel back off). I just had to have this though! How cute is that tree?!

Now, I did manage to show some restraint at Target this week. I desperately wanted to buy some of the dorm furniture they had on sale to put in my classroom library (such darling little storage cube benches and corduroy dish chairs!). I might cave in and go back for some of it next week...





Now head on over to Hadar's blog, Target Treasures, to link up for Fab Find's Friday. Hadar is so nice to have featured some of my Target finds on her post today!

Fun New Books

I love finding new books to add to my collection! I just bought 2 new books last week and tried them out on my summer school class-they were a hit!

 Kindergators is a new series by one of my favorite authors, Rosemary Wells. My students have always loved her Max & Ruby books so I knew I had to give the Kindergators a try. The first book in this new series is called Hands Off, Harry! and it's about a little alligator named Harry who has a hard time keeping his hands to himself. Luckily his classmates have some class meetings to help Harry learn about respecting personal space. This is a great book for introducing classroom rules and talking about behavior. I will definitely be putting this book on my list for the first week of school! It was a bit of a long read aloud, but it has darling pictures and my summer school kiddos were completely engaged! They kept shouting out helpful suggestions for Harry about how he should behave :) Now if I could only find a cute alligator puppet, then I'd have a little mascot to remind my kinders about good behavior all year long!

 The other new book I got is Pete the Cat. Thanks to Fran at Kindergarten Crayons for suggesting this one (and for making an awesome math mat to go along with it). This book is about a cat name Pete that gets a new pair of white shoes. He loves his new shoes so much he starts to sing a little song about them. As Pete walks along he steps in different things, like blueberries that turn his shoes blue, but he never cries or gets upset, he just keeps walking along singing his song (what a great message!).  Even though I've only had the book for a week it's already becoming one of my favorite children's books ever. My only regret is that I didn't purchase 2 copies of it because my students are begging to read it on their own, so my new copy is already looking well loved (the text is very predictable so I think my entire summer school class already has it memorized!). The best part of this book is the fun song that goes with it. You can download the song here. Warning-if you get this book be prepared to read it EVERY day because your students will beg for it. Also, it looks like there is a new Pete book due out at the end of July: Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes which I will surely be buying!

Do you have any fun book recommendations? I'm always on the look out for great new books to read to my class-so leave a comment if you have any suggestions!

Organizing My Classroom Library

 I absolutely love children's books - what kindergarten teacher doesn't! As a result my classroom library is overflowing with books. A few years ago I got them all sorted into categories and put them into colorful baskets on my bookshelves. Here are some photos of what my classroom library looked like last year.

 It took so much energy to organize the books that I got lazy when it came to making labels. I just took out a sharpie and a stack of notecards and slapped a quick handwritten label onto each basket. Well, now that it's summer break, I've finally gotten around to making much nicer labels on the computer. The best part is that each label has a picture on it to help my kinders that are still learning to read. I can't wait to get into my classroom and add these labels to spruce up my classroom library.

Click here to grab my book basket labels from google docs. I'm interested in hearing what types of classroom organizing projects you're working on this summer. Please share!