many mini book nooks – my montessori corners

The books, oh the books. They’re everywhere – tucked into shelves, under beds, in baskets and bins. I love the variety and the options, but when there are too many choices and no organizational framework, the options are no longer fun but rather overwhelming – for both me and the children.

In a Montessori classroom the space should be thoughtfully organized and beautifully maintained (just don’t check how dusty my moveable alphabet might be okay?). This external organization should make the materials (in this case books) easily accessible to the child, be simple to maintain and be somewhat intuitive, it makes sense to both the child and the adult. While all areas of the home do not have to live up to these same standards, there are some basic ways we can implement the same ideas throughout our homes and spaces. This is my approach to finding a system to both showcase and wrangle all the wonderful books that were overflowing in our house.

What made the most sense to me was to gather up ALL the children’s books in the house – and I mean all of them. I then found some deeply discounted storage bins, I bought six and I just used five. I labeled each bin, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Winter Holidays. And then I started sorting. I had been rotating books by season for a while, but I never really had a system, it was more of a grab and go situation.

The actual book sorting was a fantastic opportunity to really look at each book and rethink it’s place in our house, was it still interesting, was it appropriate, in good repair?

If it was a seasonal book, it was pretty easy to decide where to put it, but then I tried to make sure there was a poetry book or two in each bin, a mix of fiction and nonfiction, I spread out the beloved Little Bear and Thomas the Train books so there would be a new ones each season, and then of course I tried to make sure they all had about the same number of books. I then used a pencil to mark the inside cover of each book with a S, Sp, F, W, or H. That way when there is an errant book, it will be easy to return it to it’s bin.

As we were sorting through all the books we did decide on one more category, the always out books, it is made up off her current favorites and books of collected fables, fairy tales and Mother Goose Rhymes.

Then it was the fun part. We distributed the books to various basket and set up our little reading nooks around the house.

We have the red chair book nook

The snuggle up chair book nook

The always out books book nook (in her bedroom)

The other side of the bedroom book nook

I am planning on adding one more basket for library books. That way we can try to keep them in a somewhat central location.

Why did I go with this sort of setup? First, it is child friendly. All of her books are easily accessible, she knows where to find them and where to put her books when she is done. Second, I do think that children have more positive interactions with books, really with everything, when we put thought into and cultivate a wonderful collection of items to share with them. It is truly a quality over quantity situation. And yes, I say this as someone who owns a fair collection of Thomas the Train books, but I have always been very careful about which books I will buy from that series – others can always be read at the library or the bookstore. From my perspective, with the basket and bin system, it is easy to store the books, know what books are where, and find a book when needed.

There will be times when she wants a book that might be in a different seasonal bin, and I have no problem borrowing books from other bins, or adding current favorites to the always out basket, it is a fluid system.

I do have some questions that I will work on as this all develops. Is a whole season too long with one set of books? We’ll see. We have a good amount of books out, and when the library books are added, I think it will give us plenty to read and lots of opportunities to reread. But I am open to changing things up, maybe divide the seasonal bins into two sections, early Fall and late Fall. It is an chance to learn and develop what works for us.

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