Today after the electrician leaves, our kitchen remodel will finally be finished. I never really appreciated my kitchen sink until it was gone...for a month. Now that the kitchen is complete, I realize the worst of the clutter was near the ceiling.

There was a one-foot gap between the top of our old cupboards and the ceiling. I thought it was the perfect place to store vases and serving platters and all manner of rarely used junk. But now that this space is cleared, I realize what an eyesore it was.

It's funny how our vision works once we get accustomed to a living area. When we enter our classrooms, when it comes to noticing clutter, we tend to look at table or floor levels - jumbles of books, papers, or coats may grab our attention. But when others first enter our rooms, they take in the whole of it, from lights above on down to the floors, and their eyes are often drawn to those messes high up we may no longer notice.

I remember years ago entering a colleague's large office. She prided herself on the homey touches in it - always fresh flowers on the conferring table, neat bookshelves, and scented candles. We were chatting away when I asked, "Hey, what's in the orange boxes?" On her highest shelf in a far corner were over a dozen large orange file organizers - that telltale ugly orange shade that usually signals some sort of reading program.

She pursed her lips and replied, "You know, I don't really know. They were there when Charlie Hartwick had the office six years ago - they are so high up I can't reach them, and I just forgot they were there." The next time I visited I noticed the boxes were gone - a janitor had pulled them down for her, and they discovered an obsolete phonics program which went straight into the trash bin.

If you're reorganizing your classroom or staff work areas, don't forget to look up. We're often delighted when we "discover" a little space on top of a coat closet or high shelves that can be used to store the materials we rarely use. Since the materials are out of the way, don't have to worry about children or ourselves tripping over them, and they are often an odd jumble. The truth is clutter near the top of the room weighs the whole environment down, and getting rid of it can lighten and open up the room immediately. If what you're saving is rarely used, it can likely be placed in a storage cabinet or even the garage till needed. And chances are, much of it could likely be recycled or discarded anyway. If you needed it, you'd have it in a place where it was easier to reach.

This week, we've got a wealth of ideas on reorganizing classroom libraries. Plus more as always - enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy
www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

From the Choice Literacy Archives, Gayle Brand helps a colleague reorganizing her classroom, and in the process finds the activity provides many opportunities for collaboration in "Coaching Moment":

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/87.cfm

Jennifer Jones transfers some of the organization strategies she learned as a teacher to keeping track of her literacy leadership materials. Her system for organizing your professional book library may save you some time in hunting down missing books this year:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/659.cfm

If you have lots of books you're unloading from your library and a wishlist of books you need, you might want to consider using one of the book swamping services available on the web. This recent Wall Street Journal article outlines the benefits of the four largest services - Paperbackswap, Swaptree, Bookmooch, and Bookins. They all work in basically the same way, with participants exchanging books at no charge, except for the postage necessary to mail them:

http://tinyurl.com/5e5m6z

The school library is at the heart of literacy learning - how long since yours has had any plants, chairs, or fresh student art added to it? The new DVD Simply Beautiful: Middle School Edition featuring Joan Moser and Gail Boushey includes a dramatic makeover of a school library, with kids pitching in to help, as well as some 7th grade classroom quick changes. The DVD is on sale now - you can preview footage from the school library makeover highlighting how to create a "cozy area" for reading here:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item20.cfm

A hearty welcome to our new site license members from Chesterfield, Missouri; Wayne Township, Indiana; Candor, New York; White Marsh, Maryland; Avon, New York; Elkader, Iowa; Gaffney, South Carolina; Mineola, New York; Arlington, Virginia; Grand Island, Nebraska; Naples, Florida; Unionville, Connecticut; and renewing site license members from Edison, New Jersey. You can read more about school and district site licenses at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department63.cfm

For Members Only

We've published many features on classroom libraries over the past two years, and now we've gathered ten of them in our Classroom Library Organization Resource Round-Up. Here you'll find everything from Debbie Miller's suggestions for involving children in the process, to The Sisters' videos on numbering and arranging bins by themes and authors:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/661.cfm

Room tours are one of our most popular site features, so we're delighted to present our first middle-school classroom video tour. Katie Doherty from Portland, Oregon explains how she arranges her 6th grade classroom for reading and writing workshops:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/660.cfm

Finally, in setting up schedules for the year, Franki Sibberson looks at the drawbacks of having struggling readers work with many different adults and texts. If your school is in the midst of setting up schedules for specialists, classroom teachers, and volunteers, this article might get you thinking in new ways about the best ways to support students who need extra help in reading:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/643.cfm

That's all for this week!