Wednesday, May 8, 2013

My PERSONAL LIBRARY system

My system... I needed SIMPLE and EASY to do..

  I didn't need a library system on the house, yet I wanted our books to go along with school... KINDA..

  FIRST: I went to the local Wal-Mart and bought some Avery labels... I bought a few packages because well, we had a good chunk of books..  

SECOND: I got scotch tape, but you can use clear label type tape or something too.

THIRD: I had the kids help me pull ALL our books and put them on the table

FOURTH: I made piles of new books... 
        Pile One: Any book that was science related

        Pile Two:  Any book History related (even Biographies)

        Pile Three:  Books about Geography

        Pile Four:  Books about music

        Pile Five: Bible related books

        Pile Six: Books that build character, manners and such

        Pile Seven: EVERYTHING ELSE

FIFTH:   Look at Piles, my Pile 7 was HUGE, so this became my PINK STICKERS!
              I figured History and Geography go hand in hand so that became YELLOW!
              Science reminds me of growing, green is a grow color.. so yep they are GREEN!
              I tossed Music, Bible and Character all into ORANGE

SIXTH:  Let the fun begin!!!  more organizing

SEVENTH:  ORANGE -->  letters --> B = Bible
                                                          C = Character Building
                                                          M = Music
                take each pile, write the letter with a permanent marker (skinny point) or pen and stick to binding of book...  Have a helper (husband's are good at this) to add tape over the sticker, give to next helper (kids are good) and stick on shelf for ORANGE BOOKS!   

EIGHTH:  YELLOW --)  letters -->  H = History
                                                      G = Geography
                                                    GH = those books that put history and geo together
          (follow above steps)

NINTH:  you got it.. It's GREEN time.. 
        now we use APOLOGIA science... so I went with that for my labels.. examples:
                   Z = zoology
                   A = astronomy
                  B = botany
                  HA = human anatomy
                  R= resource type books
                  W = weather, nature books
                               If we couldn't fit one of those.. I left it blank... 

TENTH:  Okay, take a deep breath... blow it out.. and don't do this pile today... LOL.. (assuming you just sat down like me and did the other 3 in one day).. take a mental break.. grab some coffee, chocolate or whatever.. and then sit down to this huge pile if your like me anyways.. This is probably 1/2 of your books stash.. 
 Here is what I did...  
            Make more PILEs!!!  
                 (can you tell that organizing within the organization is like fun to me.. )

 So here's my piles: 

  Books I figure our great LITERATURE
  Fun EVERYDAY reading or EASY reading
  FICTION
  Books that are a SERIES
  POETRY
  ALPHABET BOOKS

Now I am still fine working this pink tabs...  For me the Fiction and Everyday Easy Readers was my harder part... what I SHOULD HAVE done (and may do sometime) is make a FUN/FICTION pile and EARLY/EASY reading pile.. 

  This gave me letters:  L = Literature
                                  E = Early Reading (Picture books - 2nd grade level)]
                                  F = books for Fun and Fiction
                                  S = series
                                  A= alphabet



  Now my bookshelves look like this:  Now I wish I had better bookshelves.. but I don't.. so for now this must work for us.. several smaller areas we put books.. but it helps my brain work better.. and when we want a book about.... We know where to start... so much easier to find books for school too! 






Thursday, May 2, 2013

Easter Sunday

Recently our church started a Children's Choir. All 4 of the kids, love it so far.
 For Easter Sunday they did their first performance in church. The older kids learned choreography to a song, and the little kids learned a simpler song to sing.

  Below are the links to the songs:

 Hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc1z1qR7J7Q


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2ZuAQ-Y4kA