I’ll be the first to admit it, I can’t get enough literacy!
Like most preschool and kindergarten teachers, I have a lot of picture books. When I was student teaching I met a teacher who had an addition put on her house just to store her picture book collection!
My husband says an addition for my books is not necessary, so until I can persuade him otherwise I will have to continue to search for creative solutions.
Cheap Book Storage Boxes
Of course, I have a classroom library with plenty of books facing forward {this is important} for the students to read all year long.
But I also have a separate “teacher bookshelf” stocked with favorite read-alouds like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, No, David! and many others.
I struggled for a long time to find a way to best organize the books on my teacher bookshelf.
How to Store Picture Books
I knew I had struck gold when I found the ice cube storage bins pictured at the top. I found them in the kitchen plastics aisle of my local blue and yellow big box store for about $2.
I like these boxes for storing and organizing picture books because they are long and can accommodate most books easily.
I don’t like to use magazine holders because they are usually too narrow to fit all of my picture books and often too tall to fit on my bookshelves.
Cardboard is affordable and can be cut down to fit on shelves, but it is not as durable and does disintegrate over time- trust me, I tried.
The beauty of these containers is that I can take the entire box off the shelf and return it again without having to struggle to shove books back in place or fend off falling books.
This method also protects my books from excessive spine and cover damage associated with storing books on shelves in the traditional “library style”.
Being the organizational freak goddess that I am, I also made labels to put on the end of the boxes.
Classroom Library Book Bin Labels
Make labeling and organizing your classroom library a breeze with 66 book basket labels and matching printable stickers!
Follow my Classroom Organization board on Pinterest for more great ideas!
