Tips for keeping order to a lot of homeschooling books being used for a large family

The reality of growing a large family and then homeschooling them in a Charlotte Mason approach is that you grow a huge library too.  And you borrow many, many books from the library.

Over the years of loosing books, not returning books to the library on their time schedule, finding books again when the semester is over...I've put a few guidelines/tips/rules together for our home to make my days more smooth.

We have 12 book shelves in our house.  In various locations.  Basically a book shelf in every room and hallway (no book shelves in the bathrooms...we need to you to be quick in there!).  This idea that books are the decorations in every room means that you never know completely where a book might be...mainly.

I started using a basket kept on the floor for our library books.  The idea is that books are borrowed and returned from this one basket and not shelved with our other home library books.  This works, mostly.  I also keep a close eye online at our borrowing status and if we need to renew a book that has taken a walk through the house.  I've also become very close friends with the librarians both so that they can understand what kinds of books to recommend to us and that they have mercy on this mother as I try to keep track of loads of books.  We are the family that staggers out of the library with our over filled bag.  It's been best for me if I request most books through interlibrary loan.  Our library is in a "village" of only 1,000 persons.  We have access to all the major libraries around with our card, but it is so helpful to be able to request books to come to our local library.  I can also ask for an extended book check out to help me with missing books.

Library basket

Make a designated book shelf for your read alouds.  Keep them all close to where you begin your day.  For us we have our Bibles on the top shelf.  We begin each day with prayer and Bible reading.  

Book for morning read alouds and resources for our current Term

Have a specific book case shelf for each child.  If we lived in a bigger house or had more shelves that weren't being used, I might have a book shelf for each child.  Currently I have five children that are schooling and one tag along preschool aged kiddo.  So I have six designated shelves in one room for them to store and collect their school lesson books from.  This is the first place they go in the morning to collect books they will use during the day.  They return their books to their own shelf when they have finished their day.

Bookshelf used for five children's daily book reads

Use washi tape to organize your current books in use.  This year I used one color for each day of the week.  This allows me to grab all the books we read aloud together for one day at a glance. I keep all the books I read aloud in one week on one book shelf.  I put a little strip of washi tape across the spine or on the front top cover.   I like that I can peal it off gently without ruining the books that we love.  I also can have the children collect our 'together' books when I give them the washi tape color of the day.

Use sticky notes.   Sticky notes can help to keep your place in each book.  I love beautiful bookmarks, but I also have sweet young children that love them too.  Sticky notes don't seem to be as desirable to the children and stay in place!  These sticky notes can also be a help for color coding.  Have a certain book that you like to read on a certain day to only one kid?  Let the colors guide you!  Notes can be written on them to help remind the child (or the adult) how many pages to read.  I also use the sticky notes to write exam questions as we go along.  It allows me to highlight what the kids narrate well as we go through the book.  (It's not easy to wait and write exam questions at the end...learn from my mistakes!)

Washi tape on the spine of an old book-

Sticky note with reminders of what we read each week

{and sticky notes are great for asking for deeper or wider work from a child!}


A word to the wise.  Don't use a sticky note on a very, very old book page.  They can stay stuck!  Magnet book marks are a wiser use here and save the sticky note for the cover page.  I make little notes as my goals for reading and post them inside the cover of our read alouds.

Keep books at eye level.  I love open shelving book cases.  We have three different kinds.  This one is in the kitchen/eating area.  I try to mix up the books that I would like people to conviently "find" to piggy back on the books that are assigned. It's good to have lots of books strewn around in my opinion.  You just never know who's gonna start reading!

Open face front book case.

What have you found helpful as you keep track of the current books you are using in your large homeschool family?  I'm wondering!