Each year we order various books to "flesh out" our curriculum through My Father's World. These books are a required part of the curriculum and I have plans to reuse them. The problem began when our children started to love reading. They wanted to read anything and everything. Unfortunately, everything that says juvenile is not appropriate. I also wanted to encourage reading of non-fiction books whenever possible.
This is our fifth year through the history cycle and finding books after the children read them was proving difficult. If it was just me, I would use the Dewey Decimal system {it must be the librarian in me}, but I knew that I would only become frustrated when the books were not placed back in proper order. So, I decided to color code them.
Each year of the cycle is assigned a color. I placed a color chart on the bookshelf and on my desk. If a book is used in two {or more} years of the cycle, it receives a dot for each year. I ordered the dots from Amazon
here. For paperback books, I cover the entire spine in clear packing tape for reinforcement. For the hardbacks I ordered clear, protective labels
here. We used similar labels when I was a children's librarian. I hope these are as durable as what the library had.
The books that are a required part of the curriculum are pulled at the beginning of the year and placed in our school cabinet. The children are not allowed to remove these books from the living room/ dining room. The other books labeled for each year are supplemental reading.
Each child has half a shelf in our school cabinet. Madisyn is doing additional science so her shelf has the most materials.
Ben has one of the bottom shelves and he has the least to keep up with. His flash card box is stored with the math manipulatives that I featured in my chalkboard label post.
Ty also has half a shelf. He has a few more things to store than the smaller boys but not as much as Madisyn.
Griffin shares the right side of Ben's shelf. Each child is supposed to keep their shelf neat and tidy but that rarely happens.
Our school cabinet is our old china cabinet. When we need more shelving for children the currently school year My Father's World books will have to be moved to my desk. The glass door was broken when we moved it and I decided to repurpose it into a school cabinet. I haven't decided what material to replace the glass with so it remains vacant. I'm looking forward to closing the doors and the books being out of sight. The bottom of the cabinet houses math manipulatives, headphones, maps and any other miscellaneous supplies we may need.
My desk is where I store the teacher's manual {keeps it handy for reserving library books}. I also keep anything I use frequently. This can change from week to week as we move along in our studies.
