Books, books, and more books...

Oh. my. word.  I spent yesterday morning and part of today in books up to my eyeballs!  My teacher stash of read-alouds had gotten so unorganized.  Organizing my books was also on my to-do list LAST summer, but I never did it, so it was a MUST before school started this year.  It got so bad that last year I had to get read-alouds from my teaching partner because I know I have this book but I just can't seem to find it anywhere!  Bad.  And, even though I had all of June and July to work on it, OF COURSE I waited until the week before school starts to finally get it done.  BUT....I did it!  Finally!  It's done....well, almost... ;)

This was my mess mid-project yesterday.  Books everywhere!!!

I have this great cabinet that holds all of my read-aloud books.  It closes and the kids know that those books are for my hands only!  I forgot to take a "before" pic, but it was just books....in random places that didn't make any sense or have any order to it at all!  Drove me nuts!

I got these book boxes (actually, they are called magazine files) from Amazon so that I could {finally} know just where to look for the books I needed.  And I got to work.  When I started, I still wasn't exactly sure of the system that I wanted to use, but I figured out that, for me, it makes the most sense to organize them alphabetically by title.  I most often think of a book by it's title, so this way I'll know just where to look for it.  I also sorted some books out by author or main character (Pigeon, Splat the Cat, etc).

And then there are my holiday and seasonal books.  I actually had organized those at one point....maybe last summer???....and they are stored in a nearby closet because there isn't space for them in my book cabinet.  Which leads to the next discussion of how I probably have way more books than I need.  I parted with some during this process, but obviously have a problem parting with any book that I might want to read again at some point.  I have a very hard time giving books away!

(Total sidenote here, but it makes me think of the stash of board books I have in my basement storage area at home because I will need them for my grandchildren one day, and they are just so gosh darn sweet!  My hubby thinks it's crazy, but he's surrendered.  My kids are 6 and 4, people.  They will NOT be having babies anytime soon...and by soon I mean the next 20 years.  Whatever.)

Anyway....holiday and seasonal books.  They are staying put.  No room for them in the inn.

TRIPLE YIKES.  This here is the full photo of the closet.  I won't be getting to that this summer.  Close the door and forget about it!

 By the time I left yesterday, my chaos had turned to this!

 It's organized and pretty!  Stories just waiting to be enjoyed!  AND, I was able to find so many duplicate copies of books that will find a new home in my reading corner.

Okay, okay, so I do have these {few} books that I still have to find homes for.  Some will go to my reading corner, some to my leveled book cart, and some to the donate pile.  But boy do I feel better about my book situation!

This morning, I added labels to the boxes.

 I do have one theme box for farm books because that is the field trip we take each Spring and I wanted them to be handy come May.  The rest are organized alphabetically.

Phew!  It's done!

What big project did you tackle over the summer that will make your life so much easier this school year???