Hi everyone! I posted about our Leveled Labels and Leveled Bins over the past couple of days. Tonight I wanted to share how I added even more books to our collection. Well, temporarily at least!

Our school has a really nice selection of leveled books used for guided reading. This year, I decided to take less than I normally do for guided reading groups…instead I borrowed single copies of a ton of books across many different reading levels. I made sure I took from books that had lots of copies in the book closet, so I wouldn’t take too many away from teachers who might need them.

This instantly increased our library!

My only concern was how to get the kids to keep these leveled books in the right bins when returning them. The books do have a letter written on the back in Sharpie, but I wanted something that stood out a bit more (in hopes they would be more likely to return the book to the right place).

I ended up using those little Post-It flags, because they’re tough little guys and are reusable to a degree. It didn’t take too long to write up the labels ahead of time (one of those mindless teacher-tasks you can do in front of the TV–ya know??).

I just stuck them to the back cover of the book. Actually, it was easy enough that the kids could help me stick them on–and they did!

I think I mentioned before that I do let my students take a book home to read for their homework…but only if I bought it, not if it’s a school-owned book. These little flags make it easy to see which books cannot be taken home–an added bonus!

This could also be done with library books, if your school doesn’t have a leveled library. I’m thinking of borrowing and organizing some books over our next vacation.

Well, I am off to repeatedly check the weather…another potential snow day tomorrow!! Happy almost Friday!