What makes a classroom library inviting, engaging, and accessible to every learner? In this episode of Fuel Up!, Katie and Kevin welcome a third-grade teacher from Cardinal Elementary, to share how she transformed her classroom library from a leveled system to an interest-based library that encourages student choice, independence, and excitement about reading.
Literacy Essentials – Best practices in literacy instruction
EL Education Curriculum (K–5) - https://curriculum.eleducation.org
What a simple idea! This is so simple and realistic. And why hadn't we done this before? Why not create a library where kids have choice in what they want to read? If they're interested in what they're going to read, they're going to be more engaged. So I had buy-in. There's just so much excitement with it because they're free to explore anything. They do have to go back to you know having a well-balanced book bin, but with that, they just have opportunities to go wherever they wish in the library. They love that.
Welcome back to Fuel Up, a place for conversations with and for those using EL education as a resource to support K5 literacy learning. We are so excited to have you with us for this week's episode. Today we zoom in on classroom libraries. We hope today's talk serves as a pit stop, a chance to swing by for some fresh energy, insights, encouragement, and celebration as we work together to do its best for our learners. This is a chance to fuel up. So wherever this finds you today, we hope you are able to pull over, take a breath, and crank it up. In that spirit, here we go. Welcome to episode 20. Today is all about classroom libraries. Having reading materials available to learners in classrooms and schools is super important. Learners need access to great texts. Today, we're going to talk about what makes a great library, and how do classroom libraries integrate and connect to the resource we use every day, EL education? Katie, what comes to mind for you when you hear the word library?
Yes. So when I think of library, I think of so many books, right? Several different genres. I think of taking the twins to a library, and one can look for ballerina books, one can look for dinosaur books, and I can look for my books. Yes, so just a variety of books, and it's always so inviting and cozy. So those are kind of the things I think when I think about a library.
Lots of books, comfortable spaces. Yeah, that sounds good to me.
Yeah. What about you when you think about library?
So for me, when I think about library, it actually brings up a memory. So when I was third grade, our school library, we had to actually travel outside to get to the library, but I remember just wanting to spend my recesses. Some of them in the winter. I think it was because of the cold weather. But I loved spending my recesses, my winter recesses, in the library. And similar to what you said, I would spend that whole 20 minutes just looking at the books and exploring, I ended up crazy enough teaching at the school I went to school at. So going into the library with my students was, in some cases, the same books that were there when I was there. And we would joke. We would sometimes I would tell my students I could pull out a book, and if it was an old one, if I opened it and smelled
it. The
smell of that old book would bring me back to the library I was. I visited when I was a kid, and so when I think about libraries, I think about those positive experiences I had as a student and how I was able to share that with some of my students. So yeah, good stuff.
Yeah, that's kind of exciting that you had those experiences with your students that you had. Yeah, it's pretty rare.
Well, today we are excited to talk about classroom libraries, and we've invited a local teacher to the table to talk about this topic. What should they look like? How should libraries be arranged? How do you make them manageable? And so many more things, but before we do that, we want to get grounded into what does the current research have to say about classroom libraries and school libraries. So, Katie, let's take a minute to get grounded.
Yes. So, in Michigan, we have the Literacy Essentials, which are 10 essentials for your classroom, and one of those is actually around classroom libraries. It is essential eight abundant reading material in classroom and school libraries, and reading opportunities in the classroom. And under that essential, it really. Talks about classroom should include a wide range of books, from informational books to poetry to storybooks. Books and other materials need to be connected to children's interest and backgrounds. It's also when you're thinking of your classroom library, to have comfortable places in which kids can read books, opportunities across the day to engage in reading of materials that they pick, as well as coaching in how to select those choice books, and then post-reading responses, and possibly text discussions around those activities.
As you share those, there was one that popped out to me, and it was about this theme of choice. Like research has shown that kids' engagement rises when they get to choose the books they read. I mean, there are sometimes teachers told me what book to read, but man, I loved it when I got to choose the book I read.
You're just excited.
Any of those that stood out to you?
Yeah. So the one that really stood out to me that sometimes we don't think about is having a comfortable place to read books. When I when I read at home, I don't sit up straight at a desk and read. Right, I sit on the couch and I get cozy. So that's something that sometimes we don't often think about in our classrooms, but I think is equally important to giving kids good opportunities to read is thinking about space.
You mentioned that when you were talking about what comes to mind for you when you hear libraries. You set cozy spaces, and our kids want cozy spaces too. Absolutely, and sometimes that's hard when we have these small classrooms. And some years, a lot of kids like we got to be creative in what that looks like. But to be mindful of that and personalize it to ourselves, like we would want that. That's a good reminder. Okay, so now that we are grounded, we are so excited to invite our guests to the table. This teacher is one of the most organized, intentional, positive, and committed teachers I know. It is so fun to see this educator in action. A big welcome to Stephanie Aarons. What's up, Stephanie? Hi,
everybody.
Stephanie teaches third grade at Cardinal Elementary, and it is so good to have you here. Welcome.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, guys, for having me. I'm excited to be here and just kind of talk about my experiences with classroom libraries.
Well, before we do that, we always get started with some fun questions to fuel us up, Katie. You ready for the first one?
I am. I'm very excited for this one. What is your go-to snack or drink to fuel you up and get you moving?
Oh, this is an easy one for me. I am a big lover of my loaded teas, specifically the pomegranate punch. It's a good mix of sweet and tart, and needless to say, it's full of caffeine. So it gets me up and moving in the morning. I'm fueled for the day.
Perfect. That sounds delicious. I don't think I've had a loaded tea. Is the
loaded mean loaded with caffeine?
A mix. You know, it has. I'd say vitamins, collagen, protein, anything your little heart desires, you can put in there, and caffeine. It's the key, most important. So, Katie, you test drive that for
us. I will come back to the table and tell us what you think. I'll report back. And the best flavor is
pomegranate.
Pomegranate punch is my favorite, but they have a wide range of flavors that you can choose from.
Okay, I'm taking notes on that, and I will report back. Please do.
And we are fueled up with this pomegranate punch tea. What song would you crank up to the max to fuel you up and launch your day?
Okay, so this one's a little bit harder for me because I love music. I love all music, all genres. If I'm in the car, 90% of the time my volume is up and I'm just singing along. But if I had to pick one, it is a champion by Carrie Underwood. You train ludicrous. If you have not heard it, you need to. It's kind of old, but if you do listen to it for the first time, make sure you watch the music video that goes with it because that's where you're going to see the inspiration and the motivation is in the video. Oh my god, it's a good one. It really is.
Champion by Carrie Underwood and Ludacris.
Correct. And the
suggestion is to watch the video.
Yes. Noted.
I want to do that.
Yeah, me too. And I also think this is our first song of the new season, so we need to build our new playlist. Yes, and what a
great song to start with, champion,
champion for sure.
And speaking of champions, we have a champion at the table, so it is fun. We we are excited to pick her brain about classroom libraries. Stephanie, I wonder if the first thing we talk about is if you were to. Take Katie and I and our listeners on a trip to your classroom, and you just walked us around, like paint us a picture. What does your classroom library look like?
Yeah, of course. You know, if you when you first enter my room, I have a lot of the just warm, clear Christmas lights that surround my whole classroom with a lot of greenery, and I think that just kind of gives an inviting feel when you first walk in. My classroom library is located in the back of my classroom, and I have four big bookshelves. The first two are housed with black book bins, and those are for my nonfiction books. And then there's kind of a table in the middle that separates. And then the next two bookshelves come, and those have green book bins, and that houses all of my fiction books. I also have a light-up sign in the corner that says "Cool Kids Read. I have a basket of reading buddies, and these are just stuffed animals that I allow kids to read to during their independent reading time because I feel that often kids are more focused when they're reading to someone, even if that somebody is a fake stuffed animal, it kind of helps with their engagement. And I have some fold-up stools, little mini stools that go on the ground that kids will like to sit on, or they like to use as mini tables on the floor when they're reading. And then, lastly, I have a anchor chart hanging up in the back, and it just remind kids reminds kids what a well balanced book bin is and we'll kind of maybe touch base on that later. But that kind of paints the picture.
So yes, I can like picture it perfectly as I'm in your room right now and I'm making so many connections to what you're sharing your classroom library looks like to what the essentials say, comfortable place to read, warm and inviting, clear organization on nonfiction and fiction. So, I just want to go read in your room right now.
In some of those portable spaces where you can actually get up and move around the room if you choose to. And have you been in Stephanie's room?
I don't. I don't think so. Like you
two have something in common. Have you picked up on
it? I don't think give
you a clue. Go green. Oh yes, yes.
It took me a minute. I was like, the black threw me off, but yes, we are Sparties. Yes, we have two Sparties in the room right now. We do go green. Yes, she
has the lights and the greenery, and then there is definitely a Spartan flavor to her to her classroom library. And isn't that so true? Like, as educators, we bring our flair and interest into it. And you were able to take some of these things you were passionate about being a Spartans fan and even flavor your library with that. So it's pretty cool.
I love that, and I love that it's not it's not a cookie cutter. You're making it your own and inviting for your students.
Thank you for painting a picture of your classroom library. You've been teaching for a number of years. This
is my 15th, going into my 15th year.
Congratulations, 15 years. My hunch is your library has changed over the years. So think back, like if you were to go back 10 years, five years, and what your classroom looked like before, and what it looks like today. Talk to us for a minute. What was it like before, and what does it look like today?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I first started teaching, it was very kind of my classroom library was level based. So all of my bins on my shelves were had a label on front with a label ranging from or a letter ranging from A to Z. I you know I assessed kids at the beginning of the year, found their independent reading level, and then I went and told that child, you're gonna pick from this bin, and then and I had that I had it that way for a long time, and then it wasn't until a couple summers ago we had some PD around interest-based libraries, and after the PD, I kind of sat back and I thought, Gosh, what a simple idea! Like this is so simple and realistic, and why hadn't we done this before? Why not create a library where kids have choice in what they want to read? If they're interested in what they're going to read, they're going to be more engaged. And so I had buy-in. I thought absolutely, I want to do this. So then I went into my classroom, and I just went to work. I took all my books off and I began sorting. And I first started with what I thought was the easiest, and I did by series. So I took all my Dog Man books, all my Judy B. Jones books, right? That was just is easy to do it that way, and then I was left with piles of books, piles, all around my classroom. And I thought, okay, now I'm stuck. Where do I go from here? And so, just one at a time. I went through these books and I started to notice themes. And so, for example, hey, I have a pile of a lot of books around holidays. I'm going to make a holiday tub. And here, these are all literary classics. I'm going to make a tub out of that. And then, before I knew it, I transitioned my whole library from level based to interest based in a matter of. A work over summer. So
you were like many educators, not just in our district, not just in Muskegon in West Michigan, but across the country, where our libraries were organized from A to Z by a level, and many of us thought this was simple too. We would give a reading inventory, many cases an F and P assessment, and we would assign them a letter, and then it was like this is the letter you go into, and now we've opened that up. We know research talks about like the value of student choice, and so it was like, oh man, I'm going to reorganize this, and now it is by genre or topic, or you said author or series, and kids have choice to go into any of those based on their interest. And you talked about how you did that, like pulling everything off and sorting it. Can you speak into like how long did that take you?
It was a summer project, and I, gosh, to think back. I think, I mean, it sorting probably took me a good week. Now, when I say that, that means I could only come in for a couple hours. I couldn't. I couldn't work whole days. But yeah, once you had the organize the organizing done, what came next for me was okay. I'm organized. My books are organized, but now how can I make my kids be organized when they're grabbing and using these books? So after I labeled all the bins, each label had the the genre or the series name and then an image. And then what I did is I made stickers that would go on the books that were in that bin that matched the label. So this helped students tremendously when they were returning books because that was an obstacle of mine in the past. Kids often just putting books in the wrong level bins, and so this time when kids are done, they just look at that corner sticker, they find the matching label on the book bin, and they know exactly where it goes, so that was a huge lifesaver for me. Again, it involved a lot of time, but if you put that effort in at the beginning, your library is going to be so successful throughout the years with your students.
Well, because you front loaded, so you did spend a lot of time in organizing and labeling, but it's a one and done because otherwise, if you're not labeling those books every year, actually every couple months, you're going to be reorganizing them. Exactly, that was a good investment of time.
100% And I noticed that, like in years past, I was spending way more time doing what you're saying, going back and reorganizing, and now I'm hardly having to do that. And I even have kids who will just do it for me. They're book shopping. Oh, mrs. Aaron's, the sticker doesn't match, and they just go right to the matching sticker and take care of it for me. So even the kids have ownership in it, and it's great.
Yeah, all of that organization works to build student independence. You could spend your weekend returning all these books to where they found it. Who wants to do that, or who has the time to do that? And just by your intentional organization, you've set it up where kids can do that. They can pick the books, and then they look at the sticker and they, if or the label, and they can either match the word or they can match the icon, and they just put it back for you.
Absolutely.
I want to circle back for a minute because you were talking about pulling things off the shelf and taking things out of the tubs and putting them into piles. Let us see a peek inside your brain. What were you thinking when you were doing this? All this work you invested in an A to Z library, and all of a sudden you're pulling it out and putting them into piles everywhere. Like what was going through your mind when you were doing that?
I'm gonna be very honest. I was thinking, what did I get myself into? Because, like I had mentioned, it started off easy with series, because that's just easy. But I was given some advice by a colleague who said, "Give yourself grace. It is okay that if you have a pile that you're just stuck on, that you don't know where these books fit. It's okay. Put them away for a little bit. It is absolutely okay that not every single book has a spot right now. Okay. So that was very helpful in doing that. And I just I keep pushing that word organization. Organization. I kind of relate it to like TJ Maxx. I do not like going to TJ Maxx because it's not organized for me, so I am not really engaged in that store. When I go, I just wander aimlessly and I leave. Same with my library. I think the more organized it organized it is for our students, they have good intentions when they're going to search because they just they know right where to go. You know, they see holidays. I want to read a holiday book. They can go right there and find what they need, so it's super helpful to them for them.
Well, and I think you brought it up a couple times. Yes, that organization is really important, but you didn't really have an end in mind. You let the books lead you. Like I have these series now. I kind of have these random books. Where do they fit now? What kind of genres are they? And you didn't have this big plan. Kind of figured it out as you win. Got a little messy. Yeah,
absolutely. And I feel like as the piles kept getting smaller and smaller, it was just another process of elimination. Like, okay, now I'm down to this one pile. Oh, you know what? I'm seeing a lot of dogs. I'm gonna just make a dog bin. You know what I mean, and it kind of just kept dwindling down from there, and then it was successful at the end.
Thinking about this dog bin, my hunch is when you look into that dog bin, you yes, you have maybe a collection of 10 books on dogs, and the skills in those 10 dog books might be different, so as you think about your students, you know now you've reorganized your library, and it's not by a level; it's now it's by interest-based and genres. And you have a student in your room who loves dogs, and they go in and they're going to choose a dog book. Like, how did you support student choice?
Yeah, absolutely. This was a big struggle for me because I had the buy-in. I wanted to do it. I changed my library over. The school year got started, and then I just had this moment of like, okay, now what am I going to do? How am I going to make sure my kids are picking the right books? We were given PD one day after school from a literacy coach who brought this idea to us about a well balanced book bin, and basically what this idea is is it kind of gives kids three different areas of or three different types of books that you kind of pick up when you grab a book. So I always tell my students when we first grab a book, a book can be three things. It could be a light effort book, a medium effort book, or a big effort book, and when we pick up a light effort book, that takes minimal effort. We know all the words. We can breeze through it. We know what we read when we're done. And I also have weights that support these three different areas. So when I talk about my light effort, I hold up a light weight and I just say, watch, guys. This takes no effort to lift this weight. And I'd say, okay. But sometimes we pick up a book and we read it, and we might miss some of the words, but we still enjoy it. We still know what's going on, but it's a little bit more effort. So then I switch to a heavier weight and show them I can still do it, but I need a little bit more effort to lift this weight, and then I go into the last one. Big effort. When we pick a big effort book, we might open it up, and oh gosh, we don't really know any of the words. We're stuck when we're done. We don't really know what had happened. That's a big effort book, and that might not be the best choice. And so then, of course, I'm dramatic, and I pick a really heavy weight, and I'm like, watch, you guys, I can't lift it. You know, just like we can't really read that book. So from there, I kind of you know set the stage for that, and then I let the kids go book shopping. And a lot of kids will come to me and say, "Well, do I have to read the whole book to know if it's a light or medium or big? And I say, "Absolutely not. I said, "When you're book shopping, I said just pick up a book, open any page, just read one page. If you can read every single word and you know what was going on, that's probably a light lift. And of course, I want you to have light lift books in your book, Ben, because sometimes we just have days and we want a light lift or a light effort. But then, when you're reading, if you miss a couple words, that's probably a medium. But if you open that page and you miss them all, that might not be the best choice, and I truly think that sometimes as teachers we don't give kids enough credit because I know I didn't at the beginning of this. I thought, is this really going to work? Like, come on, that level thing was just so easy. Fair, and so I just wasn't sure. And you know, after you know we had launched this, and then it was kind of time to practice our book shopping and then our independent reading time, and you know, I had some kids come up to me and just say, "Miss Erin's, my book-it's too hard. And I said, "Oh gosh, I said, "Do we pick a big effort book? Maybe. Yeah, I think so. I said, "Go, go ahead, go go shop again. You know, and so they're aware; they really are. And I just think this is a great guide. And so that's why I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that I have a well balanced book bin anchor chart that hangs in the back of my library. So, if kids need to be reminded, it's right there for them.
Well, and I like that you're explicitly teaching it, even in third grade. Right? It's different than second grade and different than first grade. So your big effort books are harder than they were, right? Now your big effort books in second grade might be your medium effort. So I really like that explicitness to help them bookshop, so they're making the most of those independent reading time.
Yeah, absolutely. And this is not a one and done. I mean, I brought in this, especially the first couple weeks of school. I would bring up this presentation again or remind them of my weights, and just say we really got to be aware of what we're picking. So,
I love that, and the way that you intentionally connected it to like how they feel, like oh, this is going to be a way. This is a big effort, and welcoming some of that, like we've all we've seen those kids who they. Have their heart set on Harry Potter book, and we're like, oh my goodness, this is this is going to be a big effort. And you know what? If you want to take that because it's your choice, that's fine. But you know what? Think about it. Is your if your is your book box balanced? So if you have a big effort, do you have some medium and little ones in there to balance that out a little bit, and so yeah, if they want to get excited and explore Harry Potter and it's a big effort book, go for it. And like, then they're going to have some medium effort and some little effort too. And you know, haven't we all too? Like, if you get a a student and you're like, this book is way too easy, as opposed to saying, oh, that book's too easy. It's oh man, you've got some little effort books in there. That's great. Wonder if you can balance that out and put some mediums in there, so it's not shaming kids about their book choice, but it is allowing them to have a balanced book choice that they can work through. And I think the the way that you've set that up and introduced that is such a gift to your learners.
Absolutely. And as you're talking, I'm thinking about how do you integrate your library with EL?
Yeah. So you know when we teach EL, there's really two two parts to EL. We do our module lesson, which is usually our whole group lesson, and then we have our all block time. And during our all block time is where kids really are given the opportunity to do that independent reading time, and so during that independent reading time, that's where they're utilizing the library in making those choices of you know what interests them. It's interesting to me because you know I told talked earlier about how I sometimes think we don't give kids enough credit. When kids are done reading, they typically are accountable for their reading and have to respond to something on a task card, and I've had some students come up to me recently and they were done reading and it was time to do the task card and they came up and said, Miss Aarons, I, I just don't really know what to say, and I said, Did you know what was going on in the book? And they said no, and they said they looked at me like they were almost gonna cry, and I felt bad. But they said, "I think I picked the wrong book. And so they themselves have this accountability of like knowing, like I have to be able to read this to be able to do my task card. And if I don't make the right choice, I can't be successful on my task card. And so they're really just aware of it, and it's great to see.
I think it's accountability, right? So we're not just letting kids go and read for 20 minutes. We are, but we're holding them accountable to yes, you need to pay attention to what you're reading, which links right back to that essential with that post-reading response activity.
So as you think about connecting it and integrating it into the resource we use every day, it really lives in that second part, the all block. As you teach third grade, where some kids they have that free choice, and it interacts with some accountability because of their task cards. And you know we've talked in previous episodes about these text sets, these module texts that can be used to support the vocabulary and just the the background knowledge, whatever topic we're studying, how do you integrate those into the your classroom library?
Yeah, I did miss this earlier when I was describing my classroom library. I kind of have a mini library in the front of my classroom, and those books are all related to our module. So, for example, when we are doing the module about frogs, up front are all the module text about frogs. So when students need to do some research reading about frogs, they know exactly where to go. Again, organization. They also have a sticker on them, and it's just a colored sticker with no image. So if a kid uses chooses to pick one of those texts from the module, they return it up front because it just has a colored sticker and not an image on it. If it had an image on it, they know it's our classroom library and it goes in the back. But I also haven't taken an opportunity to use those books because a lot of them for my students are more of a medium or big effort book. So what I found to do is to pull those as read alouds. Once kids hear it, then they feel more confident that they can read it. So I notice that students will grab the books that I've done read alouds with and utilize them that way as well. So super smart. Yeah. Remember I said when I introduced her, like intentional. Yeah. That is what we're talking about.
Super intentional. Like what a great scaffold
to say. Hey, I'm going to read this. I'm going to read aloud to you, and then they have some background knowledge that they can access that on their own and add it to their book box. Ah, so good,
so good. And Stephanie is third grade, but this is the same in the k2. So what she's spoken to on the all block, utilizing that independent reading time, skills block has that as well. So if you're a lower L teacher and you're listening, that's where you would do that independent reading time where kids are choosing. Yes.
Yep. So you talked about some changes that have happened to you over the last couple years with your classroom library, and given us a picture of how you have it organized and how. You empower your kids to interact with that library. Can you talk about like what you've noticed as you've kind of stepped back and watched your kids interact with this over the years? Maybe in comparing it to what it was like a couple years ago, what are some of those things you've noticed about your learners as they've interacted with your classroom library?
Yeah, one of the biggest things that I've noticed is the excitement for book shopping now. When I had a leveled library, some kids were, but other kids felt that they were stuck. You know, stuck in that level, and they weren't as motivated to want to shop and find new books because I was telling them what to read. Basically, now with the interest-based library and genres and all that-they are just excited. They're excited to go explore and oh hey, this book's back now. I you know I can I can read it next and just the ownership and excitement with it has drastically changed. I kind of always connect it with the idea of like you know back in the day when cell phones weren't so prominent, but you'd go to a doctor's office and you sit down, and on the coffee table, there's magazines, and I would see Men Over 50s Health or Golf Magazine, and I just I looked at it, and I was not interested. So would I pick one up? Absolutely not. And that's kind of how I felt my kids were like with the Lovelled Library. If there wasn't something interested in that tub, they weren't motivated to read it. Just like I wasn't motivated to read the magazines, and so now with this interest-based genres, there's just so much excitement with it because they're free to explore anything. I mean, they do have to go back to you know having a well-balanced book bin, but with that, they just have opportunities to go wherever they wish in the library, and they love that.
I love that example that you shared about us adults. I can't imagine if somebody took me to a library and said, "You can shop in L. I don't want L. I want this, but nope, it's M. Yeah, right. Absolutely.
So we talked about some of the things you noticed for your from your students. What are some of the things you noticed about you?
As it's changed for me, I would say that the organization is key. And since I have done the shift and was extremely organized with it, it's just less work on my end. I'm spending like a lot of less time, like Katie had mentioned, going back through my library. I also am excited with it. I've learned to do some new things with it over the years, and just one of them was this year. I'm going to try to do like a book bin advertisement each week because sometimes, as a teacher, I'm noticing, okay, Dogman's popular. We know that, right? They're going to go to Dogman or Owl Diaries, but then it's like, gosh, I feel like kids are not picking out of this bin down here, which maybe it's, I don't know, literary classics. And so what I'm trying to do during my morning meeting is pull out a tub once a week and just give like a a tub preview and just say, gosh, look at these books of all these literary classics. Look at these titles, and man, I'm gonna stick this one off to the side. And if you're interested in it, let's let's read this week from this tub, just different ways to explore the library with my kids with the books that are not as popular.
Well, because they know what they're interested in, but sometimes they don't know what they're what they could be interested in. Yeah, they don't know what they're missing out on. Yeah, absolutely. And that makes me
think of something else that you do with intention, and that is as you walk into your library, most of your books you can see the front of them. Like you know, sometimes we we come in and yes, because of space they're organized in a way we just see the spines. And sometimes that has to happen in some areas. But your intention to yes pull out a tub and introduce it, but also if you're not introduced in a way you're introducing it is by allowing them to see the face of it as they just walk by, that invitation is so smart. Stephanie, first of all, thank you for joining us at the table today. You know, we highlighted a number of key ideas in regards to classroom libraries, and I wonder if before you go, as you think about our listeners, some who have had a classroom library in their class for years. Others who may be at the step of reorganizing or maybe putting one together for their very first time. If you can invite them to consider and be intentional about one thing when working with classroom libraries, you think about all we talked about today. What would that small step be that they might consider next?
I would tell those who are considering any of those changes to come about is first just give yourself grace. It's a big project to tackle if you're thinking about shifting your library, and start off small and work your way to bigger things, but organization is key. The more organized you are, the more successful your students will be with using
it. And you had said that organization, like, is heavy loaded at the beginning.
Absolutely, and then it saves you time in the long run. Absolutely,
and there you go. A small. Step to consider over the next few weeks as you get back into the work. And as we close up this episode, we hope you are leaving encouraged, inspired, and re-energized for the weeks ahead. And we want to close things off today with high fives and hitchhikers. Here's the cool thing: we have the power to re-energize and refuel those around us. So, find a colleague. It could be the person next door. It could be the person across the hall. Maybe it's in another grade. Find that colleague and give them a high five. Tell them you got this. Remind them you're a rock star, and pick them up as a hitchhiker. Invite them to join the conversation and take a seat with us at the table. All the best to you, and see you next time on Fuel Up.