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I now own all of the guides from Little Hearts to MTMM and of course all of the books that go with them! I wanted to pass on what I have done to keep sane and keep all of the books straight. I put on the spine near the bottom of every book associated with a guide a colored sticker. (some need to be reinforced with tape depending on book material) My LHFHG set all have a happy face sticker. My BHFHG all have a frog sticker. Preparing all have a green dot, CTC has a pink dot, RTR has a yellow dot, etc. That has been a HUGE help as we are now at the end of the year and are putting the sets away for the year. In clearing off the shelves, I can see at a glance what book needs to go in what box. It also helps when cleaning the house and picking up a book and trying to remember who was reading what book (especially for my older two.) The dot on the spine tells me who it belongs to. The guides/sets that aren't being currently used are easily stored in banker boxes with the catalog pages so I can see at a glance what should be in there. (My daughter has told me I have to keep all of my HOD sets for her kids someday, so no reselling of my sets... they are practically family heirlooms now! ) Anyway, I thought I would pass that tip on. I am cleaning my school room area out for the summer and was very thankful for that little system, and thought others might benefit, especially if you start accumulating guides/sets over the years like I have.

That is a great tip. I have the 3 youngest guides and put gold stars on the spines of Beyond. I think I can keep the other 2 sets straight since they don't involve too many titles.

There are a lot of cute tiny stickers out there. I am picking something super cute for the other guides when I get them! I already had those stars and just stuck them on.

That is a great tip! Just wondering what dot stickers you have found work best? The ones I have gotten in the past always seem to come off! I really need to do this too, though, since I own a lot of guides/packages -- SEVEN and counting!!!

That is EXACTLY what I do! It works really great. Nice, easy system.

I do something similar, but with a label maker. I label each book using a label maker, for instance Little Hearts has an "L"and the image of a heart on it, Bigger is a "B"and an image of a heart, CtC, RtR, R2R, MtMM and so on as the guides come out. I reinforce the label with a strip of clear packing tape and have had no issues with them coming off! It works great and is super easy to sort them all by guide!

Wonderful tip! I never thought of different stickers.

I use labels and color them to match the guides. I use white for Little Hands, red for Little Hearts, dark blue for Beyond, yellow for Bigger, light blue for Preparing, and dark green for DITHOR. That's as far as we have. I also mark on there what guide, what book set, and what genre, they are. I suppose I am being super picky about that, but I have found it to be a great help to me! Especially as I have been going through our books, and discovering some from higher levels that I already have. Going to start labeling them soon.

Have fun!

Like. Like. Like.

Love I used Washi tape to code the spines of all the books. by son has rolled some of it though. So your suggestion to reinforce with tape is noted!

Love this idea!!! Thanks for passing it on.

Pam

I have just put a permanent marker dot on the spines of the books in different colors. I didn't do it for LHTH but have for LHFHG, BLHFHG, and Bigger. I imagine as I go on I might end up needing more different colors than I have, I guess I could also just write the initials of the program - RtR, RevtoRev, CtC, MtMM etc. We will see what I come up with (or what great ideas I find on the board).

Colored duct tape works better then the dots.

I use the vinyl electrical tape, it comes in many different colors and stays on great! I did a combining of categorizing by guides and subject so our system looks like this:

blue for history books
orange for science books
red for storytime/read aloud books
purple for emerging readers
green for DITHOR books (then I use a sharpie to write the level # on the tape)
white for all other chapter books (kiddos know they are free to read these whenever)

The color-coding makes it super easy for me and my children to return a book in its proper place! I bought our tape at Lowes ($3 or $4 for a large roll) but then found you can get them much cheaper at a local supply store ($1 or so a piece).

Hope that helps!

Yes! I love having my books color coded. I also mark with EXT for the extensions. Level readers I mark with the number.