Books, Books, Books

One of the projects I am involved in for the next week or so is going through my teaching stuff in the garage. When I moved out of third grade I boxed everything in a fairly organized manner and took only what I needed to middle school. I had always known that I would give it a year before I made any decisions about whether or not I would keep my primary teaching materials. I knew almost from the very beginning that middle school was my niche. I am not a collector and absolutely can't stand having things in storage that other people could be using. That meant it was time to sort, classify and distribute the rest of my stuff. This entails hundreds of books, primary math supplies, social studies and science units, art materials and a few grade specific things. It took up the better part of a one car garage. I am lucky enough to have people in my life who will graciously accept my hand me downs. The sorting process was the most challenging. My book piles were the following: primary books for a second year first grade teacher, books for older kids at Sutter, books my friend Paula has convinced me I will need as a someday grandma and books that are a bit out of date for the book recycler. The book sorting took a total of 6 hours spread over 3 days. I love everything about reading so there was more feeling connected to each book that I picked up than I had anticipated. I was flooded by images from my past. There were the books that I had prior to teaching and I remembered both as a child and reading to my own kids. Those are such happy memories. Some books brought images of students' faces or sometimes their book boxes because they loved it so much it was in their possession almost all year. A few put me back in the school/classroom I was in when I bought it or where I was in my teaching career. I was fascinated by the choices I made as a first year teacher compared to more recent purchases. They truly are the tracks of my teaching. Others brought back memories of entire classes transfixed as I read it aloud. I remembered the feelings I had with my first read and how they changed with successive readings. With some I recalled the flea market or garage sale where it was purchased, usually from a retiring teacher. My favorite part was to open the front cover and find a name plate from the student who had purchased it as a gift from a book fair in his/her first grade handwriting. I love children's books. I love searching for them, buying them, reading them, rereading them and even passing them along to be enjoyed by a brand new audience.