Summertime means prep-time for many teachers! If you are like me, you have tons of projects planned for the weeks you have off during the summer. My main project: Leveling books. My school uses Accelerated Reader (AR) and I wanted to label the books so kids could easily see the level.
Looking around at other blogs, I was instantly drawn to my friend Jen from Teacher by the Beach's library. She organizes hers by author's last name and nonfiction theme (like a real library!). She also puts a sticker on the spine for the level. Her current school doesn't use AR, so she has started to label her books with the Fountas and Pinnell system they use.
Another library I love is Molly from Lessons with Laughter's library. I LOVE her color coded system! Her chapter books are organized by author's last name, like a library or bookstore would do. By color coding the spine, students know the vicinity of the book they are looking for or where to put it back. It's just an extra scaffold.
So when thinking about how to level and label my books, I wanted to combine the two ideas. I created color coded spine stickers with levels in a grade-level range the same color. My books are all organized by genre and theme, so the colors wouldn't ever be together, but if a student was interested in Captain Underpants books, she could find one easily in her level range by looking at the spine sticker.
I printed my stickers on Avery address labels and cut them in half. I store the labels in a grade-level range together with a paper clip.
I looked up levels on the AR Bookfinder website and labeled each book accordingly.
I put clear packing tape over the stickers so they last longer.
These book are almost ready!
To make it extra easy for the kids, I write the AR level, point total, and quiz number on the inside of each book. When students are ready to take the quiz, the information they need is readily available.
Want to label your books the same? I made a FREEBIE PowerPoint document that you can download from Google Drive. Just download and print the pages you need onto Avery address labels (if you use my Amazon affiliate link, I get a little extra that helps me continue to make great freebies for you).
Click the cover to download from Google Drive
How do you level or label your books?
AR has an app for your phone. You don't have to look them up on ARbookfind.com. All you have to do is scan the book with your phone and it will pull up all of the AR book info for you. Also, the app will store the books that you scanned for you.
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