If you know me, you know that I do countdowns for my local library sales.
This week I went to the biggest library sale in my area. Over 50,000 (yes, really!) books were put out for this sale, and boy was it a bibliophile's dream.
Long story short, I bought ninety-seven books.
If your mouth is hanging open, I don't blame you. Even the librarians were impressed.
Let me explain...
I went with the goal of building upon my classroom collection, which I started a few years ago but is still only a fraction of size I hope to have in my classroom come next year. Many people have no idea that the books in a classroom library are purchased out-of-pocket by teachers and that schools don't provide teachers with the books for their classrooms. In the fourth-grade classroom in which I'm completing my student teaching this year, we have more than a thousand books for our students to choose from for their daily reading. They often read 2-3 books per week, which means that we need to have a whole lot of options for them throughout the year! There's no way to predict which grades I'll teach in the future, and my teaching license covers first through sixth grade (and up to eighth for special education), so I've been collecting everything from picture books to more difficult middle grade series. This sale was a great opportunity for me to pick up a lot of books for a much lower price than any online seller or local bookstore can offer.
I didn't go in with a list, but I do have a general idea of which authors are really important for me to have (big names like Andrew Clements and Sharon Creech), and which series are most popular and therefore great for buddy or bookclub reads (A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Warriors, etc.)
That being said, I did buy a few books for myself, so I thought I'd share those here.
Long story short, I bought ninety-seven books.
If your mouth is hanging open, I don't blame you. Even the librarians were impressed.
Let me explain...
I went with the goal of building upon my classroom collection, which I started a few years ago but is still only a fraction of size I hope to have in my classroom come next year. Many people have no idea that the books in a classroom library are purchased out-of-pocket by teachers and that schools don't provide teachers with the books for their classrooms. In the fourth-grade classroom in which I'm completing my student teaching this year, we have more than a thousand books for our students to choose from for their daily reading. They often read 2-3 books per week, which means that we need to have a whole lot of options for them throughout the year! There's no way to predict which grades I'll teach in the future, and my teaching license covers first through sixth grade (and up to eighth for special education), so I've been collecting everything from picture books to more difficult middle grade series. This sale was a great opportunity for me to pick up a lot of books for a much lower price than any online seller or local bookstore can offer.
I didn't go in with a list, but I do have a general idea of which authors are really important for me to have (big names like Andrew Clements and Sharon Creech), and which series are most popular and therefore great for buddy or bookclub reads (A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Warriors, etc.)
That being said, I did buy a few books for myself, so I thought I'd share those here.
Needless to say, I have a great stock of books to cozy up with this winter. The sale happens again in March, so I'm already saving my pennies for another round! Do you see any favorites here? Have a recommendation that I absolutely have to look for at the next sale? I'm always up for adding more to my wish list!
P.S. Have a children's book (or two) that you'd like to donate to my classroom library? E-mail me at topshelftext@gmail.com!
Love this. I'm lucky to be working with a fully set up classroom library this year as a long-term sub, but I'm already thinking ahead to next year and trying to prioritize!
ReplyDeleteWe also just received a donation of 1,800 books to our school, so I got some wonderful titles for our classroom library. In addition, every kid in our school got to take home 3 books of their very own! For some students, that is life changing.