Organizing Your Homeschool Library

I bet I’m not the only homeschooler who has a home overflowing with books.

Though we’ve made ample use of the public library as homeschoolers,

it’s important to keep a print rich environment on hand in our home.

But how do you store and organize all those books on your shelves so that you can use them efficiently?

Organizing your homeschool library can be a daunting task.

Here are a few tips!

Places to Keep Books

First, let’s get to where we are going to store all these books.

What kind of bookshelves do you use and what other tricks have I found useful?

• Magazine Wall Rack – holds our reference materials like the atlases, subject encyclopedias, DK general books, dictionaries, thesauruses, spellers, and some Field Guides.Anything that can be considered reference is here, but we’ve outgrown the space now that our kids are older.
• Shoebox Bins– I keep biographies, Newberry honor books, classics, and other chapter favorites in shoebox bins on the shelf so the kids can flip through them. That strategy is a favorite of mine because it turns the book covers out.
• Converted Cereal Boxes – make great magazine holders and I labeled them with winter, summer, spring and fall. I also have a box for Five in a Row, Before Five in a Row, and Beyond Five in a Row books. On another bookcase I have boxes for alphabet books, Henry and Mudge Books and a few other series we’ve collected over the years.
• The Library Shelf– This is a spot for library books only. When my children were younger and we used the library more often, this was a wonderful addition to our homeschool library. Having books from the library all in one place is a useful organizational tool on library day! When kids are finished with a book, they return it to the library shelf. On the display, I like to keep a book open. It’s guaranteed to stop your kids on the way by and draw them in.
• Bookshelves– As many as you can reasonably fit! I have worked to replace mine with IKEA Expedit Shelves which hold a ton. Not living close to an IKEA, I keep my eye out on Craigslist and I’ve been able to get two. Make sure they are sturdy- solid wood means they won’t bend under the weight of the books.
• Gutter Shelves– Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, is a van of the gutter shelf. It is just what it sounds like- a gutter fastened to the wall which holds books. We put up gutter shelves when our kids were younger and our space was small. Using the vertical space in our house was imperative. Word to the wise on the gutters- the cost is low as long as you skip the end caps and other hardware. Once you start adding that in, it gets very pricey! So you will see ours had rounded edges and they were plain. I’d prefer the end caps and braces, but it turned $15 worth of gutter into a $100 project.
• Personal Book Storage– I try to provide space for books in our kids’ bedrooms. With three boys in one room, we don’t currently have bookshelves in there. This is when a gutter shelf would be great! Maybe it’s time to bring those back. My daughter does have a small shelf in her room which holds her project related books for her studio. All of our kids have project workspaces where they do keep books.

Ways to Organize the Books

Now that you have places to put the books picked out, how can we organize them so you can find them?

Having books is a great start, making them accessible and attractive is the next step!

• Use a service like Library Thing  – Keeps an inventory list for you and connects you with other readers.
• Organize Using the Dewey-Decimal System – No reason not to categorize books as the public library does. I’ve always figured that if I need to shelve the books in my home using Dewey Decimals, my husband would declare us once and for all to have too many books! So, I haven’t taken that step. I do a combination of several systems at our house.
• Arrange by Subject on the Bookshelves– I use a color coding system to organize them together on the bookshelf.  I just colored plain white sticker labels in a small size and then stuck them to the bindings of the books. Purple- math, Green- science, Red- Social Studies.
• Reference Section– Just like a public library, you can have a reference section at home. It’s a place for dictionaries (I hope you are still using a print version!), thesauruses, atlases, topical encyclopedias, etc.
• Shelve Teaching Resources Together– We have a lot of teaching resources- things like curriculum teacher manuals, curriculum not in use, and activity books for all kinds of topics like art, history, and science. When my kids were young these were exclusively my shelves. Now I share better and my teens see plenty of use out of those resources for their own enjoyment and research. I still shelve teaching books by subject area.
• Keep Current Teaching Resources at the Ready– I have a small, narrow cubby shelf next to my desk where I keep the books I need to plan from now. It makes it much more convenient when I’m sitting to work with one of my students or I need to work on planning.
• Place Chapter Books in Shoeboxes Cover Out– As mentioned above, I store some chapter books in a box so they can be indexed like a file and face front. It saves space and makes the books attractive. I like to rotate the front book so they catch my students’ eye.

However you choose to organize your books, make sure they are rotated and you bring attention to various types of books and content.

The time it takes to plan this and implement it pays off!

Using & Organizing eBooks

Is there a place for eBooks in your homeschool library?

Using eBooks saves me time and money.

Sometimes an eBook is cheaper than the gas and parking fee it takes to get to my library.

They are also cheaper than the fines some of us incur!

It definitely takes less time to download an eBook than it takes to make a trip to the library.

Obviously, eBooks take up less space.

That’s a bonus as well.

Having trouble with the concept of eReaders?

Here are links to a few compelling reasons to use them.

• 5 Reasons to use a Kindle eReader– This post focuses on the Kindle eReader with 5 ways we use them in our homeschool.
• 5 Reasons to Use a Kindle Fire–  These five ideas focus on the Kindle Fire tablet and how this little gem has enhanced our homeschool.
• eReader Homeschooling– My Pinterest board on all things eReader for your schooling. You’ll find free books here and other information on using eReaders effectively at home.

My teens use eReaders in their school work daily.

You won’t find a better tool for the cost.

Other Reading Resources at Blog, She Wrote

Building readers is a passion of mine.

Take a look at other helps for making readers at your house.

• The Ultimate Guide to Establishing a Reading Culture in Your Home– This post is full of resources and ideas on how to build strong readers from birth and how to keep them reading beyond graduation.
• Summer Reading Challenge without The Carrot & Stick– Go beyond offering rewards for reading. Create a challenge for your children which will help them to build reading skills and interest.
• Keeping up with an Accelerated Reader– Strategies for choosing and pre-reading books for kids who read fast and furiously
• How to Choose Fiction for Your Gifted Learner– Books for gifted kids that include gifted kids like them.
• 100 Books You Should Read by the Time You Turn 20– a list for teens made by teens in response to a top 100 book list from NPR. If you subscribe, you can get a free eBook all about the list with a printable checklist of the books.

Our many books provide a print rich environment for our children and allow them to explore many topics and places.

The key to having lots of books is making sure they are somewhat organized.

Owning books is every bit as important as using the library.

If you have another way to organize books, please leave a comment and share it with us!

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