Mommy Project #1: Our School Library via Counting Coconuts

Today is the day we kick off 'Work Till We Complete Them, Project Weekend' It's getting underway a day earlier than planned, because the chaos in our school room couldn't wait another minute! The first project of the weekend is:

 Our School Library project via Mari-Ann of the Counting Coconuts Montessori based blog:

http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/2011/11/our-school-library.html

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Getting Started

This is shamefully what our school library has been looking like at the end of most days:

The blue book shelf, located on the far left, houses our library books in the middle, Highlights magazines not currently in the magazine rack on the bottom, and on the top, the Professors each have a folder to keep worksheets in. We will be focusing on the large wood bookshelf. 

I wanted this project to be done as much as possible by the Professors, since those are their books, and its their classroom. It also means more if they work on it personally, and insha' Allah it will build more respect for their books and their classroom, and make clean up easier and neater for them. 

I chose our Islamic books to sort and label first, since out of all our books, these have stayed the most semi organized over time. I asked the Professors to go around the main floor of the house, the schoolroom, and the bookshelf, and gather all the 'Allah' books (as they call them, Masha' Allah) and bring them to me so I can put them in a pile. After that, I sorted them into three stacks and had each Professor sit down at the table with their stack. 

Professor #3 joined in at the last minute, so I didn't get a picture of his stack. 

Baby Professor kept busy with a book of his own, Masha' Allah.

Labels: 

In her blog post Mari-Ann states that she got large sized circular labels and colored coded them for each category. I knew that wasn't going to suit us, and Alhumdullilah, came across these at Wal Mart for $1! I bought two packs for the project.

 Trying to keep this project suited to the Professors, I took out one sheet and cut out and handed them, only the section we were going to be working with, the green dots. 

  I did a quick example for them of how to place the stickers onto the spine of the book. The OCD/Type A part of me tried very hard to keep quiet and let them put the stickers on themselves, so long as they were in the right general area. 

These books have always been located on the far right of the book shelf, and that's where we made space to put them back.

Their completed, neatly, self stacked books, Masha' Allah

As they were labeling the books, I noticed some of the stickers were starting to peel away. After I put them to nap, I came back down to the school room and taped over all the stickers with clear tape, just like library! Masha' Allah! Fun!

That's phase one of the project completed, Alhumdullilah. Unfortunately, Baby Professor wasn't in his most cooperative mood today, thanks to his last molar trying to come through, Masha' Allah. He's slept fitfully all week, day and night, and I think its starting to get to him now. Insha' Allah we will get back to this project after lunch.

Insha' Allah, we will be continuing to work on all the projects listed in the Mommy Projects post throughout the weekend, but I'm keeping with my day off tomorrow, and won't update the blog till Tuesday, as its a long weekend. All bets are off if it snows the way they are forecasting, just sayin' ; )

Have a great weekend everyone!!!! : )