What's the Big (Book) Idea?

It may be July on the calendar, but there's a definite hint of August in the air. The burning bush is turning pink, the chrysanthemums and sunflowers are budding, and the back-to-school catalogs are filling the mailbox. And for me, the urge to clean, plan and organize is kicking in ...

I'll be posting a lot about lesson plans and schedules over the next few weeks, but these days I'm thinking about books. And by that, I mean more than usual. We home educators are always thinking - talking, dreaming, planning - about books. :) Specifically though, I am looking to get a handle on the "books, books and more books" we have all around here, ahead of our new academic year ~ which for us, give or take a few days, begins in roughly a month.

In addition to all this, we're in the (timely) process of turning our living room into an informal home library. As we set to work on this project, I remembered something Jessie Wise described in The Well-Trained Mind about how she and her children made best use of the library:

"...I was known at the public library as 'the lady with the laundry basket' because I took my children in every week and filled a laundry basket with books. Their cards allowed them to check out seven books each, and I made them follow a specific pattern: one biography, one science book, one history book, one practical or arts-and-crafts book, and three books of their own choosing - stories, poetry or nonfiction. We always read everything we brought home."

You may be chuckling over that laundry basket image, but if you're like me, you might also be also thinking - what a great idea! (Because, really, five bulging tote bags make far less sense). But what I really like is her idea of "assigning" a checklist of categories from which her children could choose their books. I wondered, could this system help us use books more efficiently at home? Although I love going to the library, realistically we only get there about once a month. And, though I feel blessed to have so many books in our possession, unfortunately we only make use of a small percentage. Far too many wonderful books end up sitting there unused ~ new paths left unexplored, new ideas left unimagined, new synapses left unfired. :)

So how to get a handle on all these books, this embarassment of riches slipping through our fingers? Well to start with, some better (physical) organization, and then a new way of looking at our home library - because that's what it is really - and here's where the card idea comes into play. Cards seem to work pretty well in the public library, why not here at home in our own?

This is all still pretty much in the "idea" stage, but here's the general plan. I bought library pockets at the teacher-supply store (the kind you place inside books) and a bunch of colorful index cards. I adhered three pockets to the side of the main bookcase (see photo at right), one for each boy. On an index card I wrote each boy's name and then several categories to be filled: science/nature, general nonfiction, history, audiobook, magazine, library choice, storybook, chapter book OR early reader ... I'm still tweaking the categories, which obviously, will be unique to each child's age and reading level.

Each week the boys will look through our "stacks" and choose books according to their card. The books will be placed in their "school" bags (see right). We'll write the titles on the cards, read the books throughout the week, and check them off as we go. The cards will be saved as a record of our reading. An experiment to be sure, but I hope it's one that will help us "rediscover" some old friends and widen our reading horizons a bit. Next on my list is to tackle my own reading basket - I have gotten away from my regular reading time lately (of course that would have nothing to do with blogging) and I want to put things to rights again soon. :)

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the main book areas that are currently under review. Hopefully by September, I'll have things in better order.

Above is the main home education bookcase, organized by subject. (Top to bottom: math and arts/crafts; poetry/language and nature; science; more science; history and educational coloring books) It's always this full, but not usually this neat. (We have been entertaining recently and there's nothing like a party to get your shelves looking smart.) It is maybe too full though - it's hard to slide out a book without pulling out several more at the same time.

This is the corner bookcase which holds mostly paperback novels and chapter books. We use a rather inelegant, yet thrifty and efficient, system of brown coffee boxes to hold the books facing forward. It is easy for the kids to pull the boxes forward and see the spines (titles) at a glance. They're all a jumble right now, but I hope to weed through them and establish some rhyme and reason here soon. The top of the bookcase has a globe (not pictured) as well as the dictionaries and children's encyclopedia. The bottom shelf holds the kids' magazines. Slipped underneath the bookcase are atlases and oversized books (for example, A Street through Time).

The above bookcase is fairly new, and still unfinished. It holds most of our Catholic resources, including my most important home education and family-life guides (Real Learning, A Charlotte Mason Companion, A Catholic Homeschool Companion ...) as well as all the little books and children's missals we take with us to Mass (including Bookworm's Magnifikids). The second shelf down is holding our Catholic Mosaic book collection (mostly dePaola books thus far). Once we begin following Cay's (beautiful) literature study next month, I plan to set up the selected titles for the current month on display, much as our "island books" are shown here. For now this shelf revolves aroound our current read-aloud (Swallows and Amazons) as well as a collection of books about islands, island life and seafaring in general ~ a nice summertime trail.

And finally, we head out to the family room, where we have yet one more book area to peruse. This table holds our nature books and field guides, nature trail basket (currently bugs) and this month's kids magazines. On the lower shelf are preschool books and underneath is a basket of Crackerjack's early readers. To the right is a basket holding favorite picture books of the moment. Gosh, it all looks so cluttered - my aim was "cozy" but I think I've created confusion, LOL! (And yikes, look at those crayon marks left by a little 4yo who shall remain unnamed - though not unspoken to!)

A few other "reading" areas I'm assessing ~

• the homeschool shelf (i.e. the Saxon books, CHC materials etc.)
• library books and materials (all in one place)
• theme baskets (no matter how streamlined I get, there will always be these)
• cookbooks, cooking magazines and recipes
• music instruction for the keyboard as well as seasonal songbooks
• audiobooks
• catalogs (I get lots and love 'em)
• art study books
• craft books like how to knit, cat's cradle, origami, etc.
• Bible and prayer books

In upcoming posts I hope to address other aspects of our home (and home school) such as our bulletin board, our learning room (aka our dining room), our year ahead (aka the ed. plan), setting up the planner (but ah, which one?), our schedules and systems, as well as my own reading basket.

Not too ambitious, am I? ;)

Comments

[Amy]

What a neat idea! I know I can always come here for something to get my creative homeschooling/homekeeping juices flowing! :)

[Theresa]

Brilliantly done!!
My bookshelves are in need of a major overhaul, too. Guess I just need to get cracking!
I like the idea of the cards, btw. Good one!

[Donna Marie]

WOW..you are ambitious!! I love that purple door btw :o)

If you want to cover the boxes, you can use found pieces of fabric that you can wrap the boxes in...like Christmas gifts...
(I did that in a country pattern around laundry soap boxes for oh so many things!!)
...iron, fold, glue with hot glue and ...voila!! looks great ;o)...also contact paper works great too!! you can use fabric by theme....ok...now I am going off the deep end...I think I'll make a run to the fabric store for some yummy fabrics too!! Remember....CARDBOARD IS YOUR FRIEND!! LOL

[Cheryl]

Your books look very organized, Dawn. I love looking at pictures of homeschooling resources storage. Doesn't that sound strange? I like your ideas for future posts too.

[Genevieve]

I agree with Donna. I love cardboard boxes. I've painted them, decoupaged them, stenciled them. *laughs* Looking forward to reading about your upcoming project. I just cleared out the study. *grinz*

[Ann]

Wow! You're off to a great start!
I'm doing the same thing at our house.
It has been a lot of work, but very satisfying.
I look forward to reading more as plans unfold. I like the tote bag idea very much!
Thanks for posting.
~Ann

[lindafay]

You have a lovely blog. I've taken away some new ideas and links. I'll be back

warmly,
lindafay

[Angel]

Gosh, this was helpful. Katydid and I have just spent a long time looking at all your pictures in detail! We have our books organized by subject, but the system has been breaking down lately since the kids have putting books back where they don't belong. The bookcase is stuffed, too, so it's hard to find a book. I love the idea of using boxes and baskets to hold books... we don't drink coffee, though, so maybe amazon boxes??? LOL We also desperately need more bookshelves... and TIME to organize!!!

Well, I'm inspired. Thanks!

[Dawn]

Thanks, everyone! :) And thank you, Donna and Genevieve, for the ideas on making our book boxes more aesthetically pleasing, LOL! I think a stop at Joann Fabrics is in order this weekend. ;)

[Karen E.]

Ooooh, I'm drooling. How funny that we both have the same Master Plan in mind -- tame and organize the books so that we use the riches we have!

And, I, like you and my kids, would just as soon skip math, but ... well, you know how that goes .... :-)

[Meredith]

Wow Dawn, I'm inspired!! I'm loving everyone's planning posts lately, guess I better get into the swing of things!!

[Annie]

Looks fabulous. How did you find boxes all the same size (what are coffee boxes?) I've been searching for baskets that are big enough and strong enough that they'll stand up to picture books. Any suggestions? Geat site.

[Dawn]

Hi Annie, :)

"Coffee boxes" are the plain brown cardboard boxes in which our Peet's coffee is delivered each month. They're about the size of a children's shoe box, and just the right fit for our shelves. There is a link to Peets Coffee on my righthand sidebar (under Favorite Links of All Kinds) - my boys gift me with a subscription every birthday. :)

Barring the coffee delivery, you could try asking at Stride Rite or another children's shoe store for extra (i.e. free) boxes. Then cover them with fabric or stencilling as was suggested above.

Thanks for stopping by!

[Suzanne]

Dawn: I love your blog...have been checking in for the past month or so! I noticed that some of your books are "stacked" on top of each other as opposed to "in a basket" to be "flipped through" (ie: "main home education bookcase") Is there a reason for this? Does this hold more books? Perhaps these are the books that mainly you access, as opposed to the kids? Just wondering as I'm contemplating our book spaces as well! Thanks for all your great ideas!

[Dawn]

Hi Suzanne,

These books are ones I usually dig out for the kids, but also, I find the books fit better on these particular shelves this way. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

[Jen]

I love the laundry basket story! When I was little I had a "magic number" of books I could check out so we could just count them to see if they were all there. My number was 42, we went to the library every two weeks! My daughter is 6 and is a recent independent reader. Our library has a 100 book limit per card. She just got her library card and after using for the first time said "now we can check out 300 books for our family because I have a card too!" What fun!

[TOSPUBLISHER]

Very well orgaznized and thought out. Let us know how it works out!

-gena
www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com

[meredith]

I also latched onto that bit from TWTM. My kids are too young to have specifically assigned categories, but I've got it copied into my notebook for future use.

Thanks for the storage notes too -- I always enjoy seeing others' organization schemes.

[Loni]

Pardon me, but I am also drooling! You ARE ambitious girl! I think you should be appointed the "HOMESCHOOL MAKEOVER MOM". Great ideas!

[heidi moses hafey]

Dawn,

I just got off the phone with your mother... after she gave me your married name I found you here. I'm sure she'll call you about the reunion we're planning, if you get a minute, send me an e-mail and I'll give you the details.

Heidi