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Taming the books!
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Hi all, Knowing there are plenty of book-lovers here, 🙂 I would love to get some input about how to keep those beloved books under control. I know nothing beats good old-fashioned discipline in getting them back on their shelves, but would be happy to hear any ideas of how you’ve worked this out in your homes. Here’s what things look like in my home: I have four boys 7 and younger, and am 35 weeks pregnant (so it is especially appealing to me right now to find ways of preventing lots of bending and stooping to haul books back to their homes!). My boys do help me, but I would like to have a better routine and/or setup for all of us in managing the many books we love to get out. In addition to lots of bookshelves (for the first time in our marriage, we just recently got *most* of our books out of boxes! Hooray!), we have a couple of shelves in the living room (including one by the couch) for children’s books which face out — the idea being to set out books we’re currently reading together and to have an easy place for the boys to put books away when they’re done. Theoretically, I will periodically go through and put those all away, and we can put new ones out…….doesn’t always happen in a timely manner……..I’ve also tried having bins out, with varying levels of success. And I have a cart I can use to do large sweeps through the house to collect and redistribute books — but I would love to keep things from getting to that stage. To be honest, I have stacks of my own books which I have trouble enough keeping down! It drives me crazy to have books out of place, and I do train my boys not to leave them on the floor where they can easily get damaged, but with seven people in a house, all who love books, it can get out of control very quickly! I know there are plenty of families who deal with their many books, so I’d love to hear ideas, whether for organization systems or routines. How do you keep your books accessible but well-managed? Melissa W. 🙂
Sorry, that was my first time adding a new topic. As I wrote it, I had paragraphs separated, so it wasn’t all one long paragraph. I’m not sure what I did wrong…
I found with my almost four year old that putting books upright on a shelf In a row was too hard so I created a book sling. Darn, I could not upload the photo from my iPad but you can find them in Pinterest. This helped ALOT!
I have piles of books all over our house, so maybe I’m not the best to respond. 😉
I keep most of our books in the basement/schoolroom. That keeps younger ones from pulling tons of books off the shelves. I organize our books by category so I’m not spending too much time putting them away. We have shelves for picture books, some for chapter books, and some for different school subjects (science, nature study, Shakespeare, poetry, history etc.). I also keep a couple shelves for books we are currently using (within the next term or year). For books/binders they use independently, they keep in their bins on a storage shelf.
Every few months, I try to re-organize the shelves and make sure things are put in the right places. We put books away on a (mostly) daily basis. I keep a small bookcase upstairs for library books and books we are currently reading (for free reading). DH and I read quite a bit on our tablets which cuts down on books laying around the house. 😉
Another idea is to have a book basket of some sort…or the rain gutter bookshelves. That way your DC can look through a smaller assortment of books at a time. Even your younger DC would be able to put them away when they are done.
We have bookshelves arranged by topic or type of book, similar to HollyS. So as long as the book is returned to the right area on the right shelf, it does not have to be in one particular spot, so that helps them remember.
I have also read of an idea to use different colored (color=child) paint stir sticks or similar sturdy marker (cardstock?) to place on the shelf when they take a book out. Then you know who left the marker and did not return the book. And the child knows where the book should go when they return it. I think there is a bit of taming the children here as well as taming the books. 😉
I also keep a book basket out with extra books on topics we are covering in school, but did not schedule for school. This helps them to not get so overwhelmed with all of the books and they see and use books they would not otherwise pull off the shelf. I change this each term and it is usually non-fiction science, history, and geography. And they only need to return it back to that book basket.
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