I'm preparing for a Used Book and Curriculum Sale tomorrow so that means.....going through the bookshelves and there are many like every good homeschooler knows!

I thought I would share how I do a “spring cleaning”.  I do this for many reasons the most important being making room for more new books ;).

First of all I need to share what bookshelves I have and how they are organized.

1) The main living book shelf – this is the family/homeschool book shelf.  We have Dad and Mom books on the top two shelves, then we have Novels and Series type books, then I have Geography and History on one shelf and finally Science related stuff on another. 

2) The next shelf is a new shelf for us this year and it’s called the Tea Time book shelf, these are all the books that I want to use during tea time (those ones that are so awesome yet I never seem to take the time to read to the kids, some poetry books, great picture books, Christian books, manners, grammar, and finally some art books as this is when we tend to do art activities as well, at the end of tea time.  This shelf has been AMAZING for me this year, I finally used those books that I have been meaning too (and many of them will be staying as they are so great).

3) Next is the homeschool credenza and not technically a book shelf this is where I hold “curriculumy” type stuff.  On the left is stuff I use for Josh and on the right Noah’s stuff.  The 4 drawers going down the middle houses, pens/pencils/coloring pencils, felts etc., Bible stuff, Game pieces, dices, cards and other manipulative paraphenilia.

4) Then comes the “preschool” bookshelf which is mostly Noah’s “stuff” not just books, but I also house all the Living Math books and manipulatives here.

5) Lastly each kid has a bookshelf in their bedroom where I periodically swap out books for bedtime/interest reading.

So when I “hit” a book shelf this is what I do.  As I pull each book off the shelf I put it into one of the following categories:

1) Treasure – I have totally forgotten I had this book and WOW this will be perfect for this year, I’ll write it on a list to use in my planning OR I’ll add it to the Tea Shelf to use during tea times.

2) Keeper – I may or may/not use it this year but I will use it again – it’s most likely a reference type book.

3) Donate – I probably won’t use it again but it’s a useful book so I’ll donate it to our homeschooling library so that someone else may get use or enjoyment from it.

4) Thrift Store – I call these ‘junk books’ ones that were read once or upon getting them had material in them that wasn’t for us.  I donate them to the thrift store in town.

5) Sell – I can make some money from these books – used curriculum that was great but I won’t use again or I never used.  If there is a price affixed I usually ask for 50% of that price.  I use this money to buy more books – it’s my incentive to sell more books.

6) Move to another shelf – either the kids books shelves, the tea time shelf, or I decide to reorganize my shelf in another manner (although the “system” I seem to have now has been working well for us for quite a while). 

I have to mention here that I usually don’t like organizing things into “subject” areas as so many books really are “cross curricular”.  But I have found keeping all the, Science type books and the Geography and History together has increased our use of these books and make it easy for us when we need to reference something in that area.

Lastly I make a list of things that I think are missing or that we may need. 

I also make a reminder to myself to use the library more often as well as our homeschool resource library, SO many treasures there but I don’t need to “house” them with MY precious bookshelf space.

Of course the shelf space doesn't remain "empty" for very long. 

There are always more treasures to find!

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Posted by Jacqueline

I enjoyed reading about how you organize your bookshelves. That's a job I need to get to.

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