This year I tried something a little different in my library. I used to use a sun tent as my reading center. However, when I moved to my new school, I wasn't sure if I would be allowed to use it. Sadly, this year, there is no reading tent (tear) yet I continue to tell my students to go to the reading tent during centers time. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Instead, I decided to try something new with my students. These bins used to be painted with crabs, fish, and turtles (my old reading groups) but I re-painted them, gave them snazzy new labels, and made them a little more student centered. Now, these are my students' go to books every time they come to the library center. They can "like" books and put them in the Recommended Books bin. They can write their own books, newspapers, or magazines and put them in the Student Authors bin, and I am in charge of the Seasonal Books bin. I use the wonderful dollar books from Scholastic to fill these up for each season throughout the year.
You may be wondering where I got these cool chair bins. Many moons ago, back when I was a sparky new teacher, I found them at Five Below. However, I have since hunted high and low for replacements and have come up dry. I'm sure you could use 3 crates tied together if you felt so inclined. The fabric bins inside came from the Dollar Tree and I'm pretty positive that they would fit in a crate, though I haven't tried it. Either way, just having these three bins in one form or another in your library center will be sure to spark their interest in reading and even writing. My personal favorite is the Student Authors bin. Some of my students actually write weekly editions of their own classroom newspaper and put them in there. I remember one headline Johnny Throws Rocks at Recess! I laughed pretty hard at that one.
Here are the signs if you would like them:
Stay warm and happy reading!
-OneCrazyS
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