Each year I struggle with what to do with the old, worn-out books in my class library. I’m not one to throw away anything that could be of value to someone else, and often times second-hand stores won’t take donations with the kind of wear and tear I’m talking about. This year, I decided to start “retiring” my old books. When a book gets super worn or shows early signs of falling apart, I put a label on it explaining that it is a “retired book”. Then I give the book to a student to keep. There are lots of ways you can do this; include the books in the class prize bin, auction them off to the kids, put them in a “retired books” library where kids can take them as they please, etc. The kids become genuinely excited to let a book live its retirement years at their house. Here is a picture of the retired books I pulled from my library this week.
The label helps communicate to parents that these books can stay at home. All of my books have my name in them, and I wanted parents to see that it isn’t one that has to be returned to me. You can make labels of your own using the label maker in Microsoft Word.
