Our Toddler Library

We have a lot of children’s books (thanks to many of our family and friends)! But the (lack of) organization was getting out of control. Stacks in the family room, and overflowing shelf in their bedroom, and random piles throughout the house. We decided to move and organize all the books to one central location so the kids can access them all without reading the same stack over and over.

First we cleared a space in the living room and measured for bookshelves. We ended up getting the Ikea Expedit Shelf (3 of them in this setup).

For the ages of our kids (3.5, 3.5, almost 2), it made sense to order them based on the bind type. So board books went on top, and books with paper pages went on the bottom. And then they are sorted by size after that. I like this separation because then we can say “mommy and daddy need to help read you the books from the bottom”.

The next thing I wanted to do was somehow keep them from just shoving books wherever they fit, so I introduced the kids to the idea of marking the book they “borrow” with a tail. They think it’s fun! They pick a tail, then put it in place of the book they want to read, and after reading return the book to where it was before marked by the tail.

I put up a few rules because kids love rules, right? Ha! But it does help remind the responsible adult in the room because my kids WILL try and convince the babysitter that it’s ok to stack the books to climb into the attic. Here’s the printable.

And that completes our family library.

Finding a bookworm curled up on the couch with a book brings a smile to every mom’s face!