How To Organize Your School Counseling Library

As a former second grade teacher, my favorite part of my classroom was my classroom library. By my 8th year of teaching, I had collected over 2,500 books for my students!  I loved reading books out loud to my students and helping them find new books to get lost in.  

Now, as a school counselor, I continue to use children's books on a regular basis.  I enjoy finding books with a strong message that students can connect with, learn from, and apply to their own lives.  I frequently use books in my classroom lessons and small groups.  I even use books with during individual counseling and we sit side-by-side on my couch to read and discuss how a book applies to the student's life.  Because organization and efficiency are my jam, I keep all of my books organized in my office.  Keep reading to learn how you can organize your own school counseling library!   

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.  I receive a small commission when someone makes a purchase through one of my links, which helps to support my blog.

Step 1: Sort Your Books

The first step to create an organized school counseling library is to sort all of your books.  To begin this process as a new counselor, I borrowed a kindergarten teacher's classroom because I needed a wide, open space.  I started by choosing about 10 categories that I knew I had a lot of books for and wrote the categories on Post-It notes.  I took my bins of books and began sorting them into piles as I matched them by theme.  As I sorted, I took the time to skim any of the books that I was not as familiar with because I wanted to make sure they were all sorted appropriately.  When I started finding books that did not match up with my Post-Its, I began creating sub-piles with similar themes.  In the end, I had 20 piles of books that were matched by theme! 

School Counseling Library Themes

Here are the 20 themes that I use in my counseling library.  Many are self-explanatory, but here is a quick description of each category:

1) Making Friends: Books about social skills related to friendships

2) Friendship Problems: Books about conflict resolution, bullying, and gossip

3) Self-Esteem: Books about individuality and boosting self-esteem

4) Feelings: Books about feelings that do not match my other specific feelings categories

5) Families: Books about divorce, new siblings, and family conflicts

6) Anxiety: Books about anxious feelings and coping skills

7) Anger: Books about angry feelings and coping skills

8) Grief: Books about the loss of a friend, family member, or pet

9) Self-Control: Books about managing impulses

10) Kindness: Books about treating others with kindness and respect

11) School: Books about new students, school anxiety, and other school-related issues

12) Life Skills: Books about character traits and manners

13) Health: Books about illnesses, lice, hygiene, and other health-related issues

14) Teamwork: Books about working together

15) Careers: Books about career options

16) Girl Power: Books specific to common girl issues such as self-esteem and friendship drama

17) Creativity: Books about thinking outside of the box

18) Perseverance: Books about not giving up

19) Diversity: Books about individuality and cultures

20) Read Alouds: Books not specifically related to counseling, but are fun to read aloud during Right to Read Week and other special school events

Step 2: Catalog Your Books

There are many websites and apps that you can use to catalog your books, but my favorite is Library Thing.  Here is why I love it:

-You can add books by typing in the title and Library Thing will pull the rest of the info for you

-You can use a book scanner to easily add a large amount of books 

-You can organize your books by category 

-You can browse your categories by book cover to quickly find the book you are looking for

-You can "tag" books to break down your categories.  For example, the "friendship problems" category may have tags for bullying, conflict resolution, gossip, etc.

-You have the ability to track and lend your books (I don't use this feature, but it would be helpful if you loan out a lot of books)

-You can log 200 books for free or pay $10 per year or $25 for life.  I used the $25 deal because it is worth it!

If you want to check out how I organized my books on Library Thing, click on this link!  Use the drop-down menu on the left to choose a category and browse some of my favorite books.

Step 3: Design Your Library

The next step is to figure out how you would like to design your library in your office.  My office is fairly small, so I keep all of my books on a tall, wooden bookshelf.  On the top shelf, I store all of my counseling resource books.  On the rest of the shelves, I have my books sorted into bins by categories.

I have two types of bins on my bookshelf.  Near the top, I have these neon bins from Really Good Stuff.  They are a bit pricier, however, I bought these when I was a classroom teacher and they have held up really well.  I love how they come with a clip-on label to easily add your book category.  A less expensive option are these Storex bins, which can also be found on Amazon.

The narrow bins above are great for the categories where I have less than 20 books.  For my larger categories, I use wider plastic baskets (about 13" X 10").  My bins are similar to this 6-pack from Sterelite, but you can also snag these baskets for a great price at stores like Target or Wal-Mart.

Step 4: Label Your Bins

On the top shelf of my counseling library, I store all of my counseling resource books.  They are organized into categories that are separated by paint stirring sticks!  Here's how I made the book separators:

1) Go to Lowes or Home Depot.  Tell them you are a school counselor and would love a donation of paint sticks for a project! :)

2) Place the paint sticks in a cardboard box and spray paint them black.  Wait 1 hour, flip them over, and spray paint the other side.

3) Download the Avery Label Template and type in your counseling resource topics.

4) Print your topics on Avery mailing labels.  

5) Stick the labels onto the ends of each paint stirrer.  Mine have held great for 2 years, but it looks like I may need to put a piece of clear packing tape over each sticker this year to secure them better.  

The next step in organization is to design labels for all of your baskets!  If you use baskets that are a similar size as mine, I went ahead and did the work for you! :)  Click on the resource below to download your FREE School Counseling Library Labels!

One great thing about having an organized library is that it is very easy to loan out books to students or parents!  I can quickly grab a book during a parent meeting and let a family borrow it for a week or two.  I also find that students like to peek at the categories of books when they are in my office, and when they get curious, I ask if they want to borrow a book from me.  To help me keep track of the books I loan out, I use a page in my Digital Counseling Binder, which is a Google Slides file that I use to organize my counseling life!  Here is a peek at the slide:

I hope this post helped you to wrap your mind around how to organize your school counseling library.   Check out this post to read about 15 Must Have Books for School Counseling and stay tuned for more counseling library posts where I share my favorite books.  Don't forget to pin the image below to save this post for later!  

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School Counselor Office Tour

School Counselor Office Tour

Alternate Title: How to Turn a Kindergarten Boys' Bathroom into a School Counseling Office

This post will show you around my elementary counseling office and show you how I organize my space!  The alternate title is no joke.  Back when I first started teaching at my school, my current office used to be the kindergarten boys' bathroom!  A few years ago, we needed extra space, so the counselor's office was turned into a classroom and a bathroom was turned into the counselor's office.  Truth be told, you would never really know my office used to be a bathroom. Yes, it is SMALL and in an awkward location in the school, but I love the privacy and it has become a quiet, cozy space to work with kids!

(Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links)

About My Office

Last year, as a first year counselor, I was given a small supply budget and used some of it to spruce up my office.  I also wrote a grant through our local education foundation, so that helped to offset some costs and allow me to make my office an inviting space.  I work at a K-4 Title I school and am fortunate to be able to see students individually, in small groups, and in classroom lessons.  I conduct individual counseling and small groups in my office, and visit each classroom for whole group lessons.

Three Main Seating Areas

1) Counseling Couch

Although my office is tiny, I have three seating areas that allow a lot of flexibility.  The most popular choice for students is my couch!  Students love to get comfy on the couch while we chat and I spin my desk chair around to talk with students.  We have strict fire safety and health code policies, so I had to buy a "school couch" that can be easily cleaned... unfortunately, that means the couch is actually not very comfy, but the kids don't seem to mind!  One thing I love about the couch is the flat arm rests and back surface, which allow me to prop up some comfort items and a bin of fidgets.

Find It Here:
-Floor Lamp
-Inside Out Poster
-Hoberman Sphere 
-Worry Eater
-Kimochi Octopus

2) Sand Tray Station

Another favorite area for students to sit and chat is my sand tray station.  Students love to sit on the Hokki Stools and play with the sand while we talk.  The Hokki Stools are a bit pricey, but they are very durable and allow students get some sensory input while we chat because they gently wobble--I love sitting on them, too!  I use kinetic sand in my sand tray, which is an absolute favorite because it is very moldable!  Helpful hint: I use a 10 liter sand tray and needed about 10 pounds of kinetic sand to fill the tray.

If the student is visiting my office for a check-in or a calm down time, he or she often plays with the sand as a sensory tool while we talk.  If the student is visiting me to work on a specific counseling goal, I often will give the student a prompt for the sand tray.  Because my office is tiny, I don't have the space to display all of the miniatures as recommended for traditional sand tray therapy.  However, the organizer that I use as a sand tray table doubles as a storage unit and all of the miniatures are stored inside.  When a student is working on a sand tray prompt, I simply pull out the drawers and place them on my small group table, which is located in the center of my office.  This allows the student to easily see all of the miniatures that are available and also allows for quick clean up!

3) Small Group Table

My small group table seats 5 students comfortably, but I can fit 7-8 students when I'm desperate! I pull over my desk chair to sit at the table with students, which saves space by not having an extra chair at the front end of the table.  For extra seating, we pull over the Hokki Stools from the sand tray area.  I love having a large dry erase board on the wall near the small group table because we can easily write on it during our groups.

Storage, Storage, Storage!

When I was hired as the school counselor, I spent half of the summer arranging my office and figuring out where to store everything!  Since the office was a bathroom originally, there is no built in storage.  Thankfully, the office came with the two metal cabinets you can see in the photo above.  

The double wide filing cabinet actually does not have any files in it!  Instead, all of the drawers are used for storage.  The bottom two drawers hold school supplies and art supplies that I use for small groups.  The third drawer up holds storage containers for my small group folders (I run 8-10 small groups at the same time, so I needed a place to keep the materials for each group separate).  The top two drawers hold games and other materials I use with students.

The metal cabinet on the right has two purposes (the above photo shows the cabinet when it is open)!  One, it has several shelves that I use for supply and book storage.  Two, it holds my coat, purse, and personal items.  I actually put a plastic storage container in the storage cabinet to give me even more places to put stuff!   

Another storage space with two purposes is my paper storage unit.  This is beside the two metal storage cabinets.  It functions as a small table to place a file sorter and supply container, but most importantly, holds all of my 11 X 18 construction paper!  

Behind my small group table, I have a small bookshelf that holds some commonly used items. The bottom shelf contains my "grab and go" resources that I keep multiple copies of and can grab quickly when I have a student in need.  The middle shelf holds finger puppets and larger puppets that I use with my younger students.  My older students also like to use these to role play friendship issues!  Two of my favorite puppets are this set of finger puppets from IKEA and this larger happy monster puppet. The top shelf holds an amazing dollhouse that I found on Amazon.  It is the perfect size for a tiny office because the front of the house folds out to make the house bigger!  

My K-1 students love putting the dollhouse on the floor to play and talk through issues!

My Desk and Workstation

My desk is directly across from the couch.  When students sit on the couch, I spin my desk chair around while we chat.  This saves a lot of space by not having a second seating area for me.  The first major decision I made in my office when I got the counseling job was getting rid of the massive, wooden teacher desk.  Sure, it had a lot of great storage drawers, but it was simply too big for the space.  Instead, I brought this narrow, wooden desk from home that I had purchased in college.  It works great for the space, still has storage, and has a much sleeker look than the teacher desk monstrosity.  (Disclaimer: I do not typically have fresh flowers on my desk!  These were an end of the year gift from a colleague!)

  

I made the decision to place a metal filing cabinet directly next to my desk, which created a great work station wall.  It's magnetic, so I placed magnets on the back of my building schedules, which allows me to take them off easily to refer to often!  I also have a magnetic dry erase board that I use for quick reminders and my to do list.  Another helpful thing I did was stick a notepad and post-it notes directly to the file cabinet, so I can quickly grab a note and jot down stuff before I forget!  An added bonus of having the filing cabinet next to my desk is that it functions as a room divider and blocks my often messy desk from view when you walk into my office!  

I love that my desk is extra wide because I can keep my School Counselor Planner open on the left side of my desk under my "work station wall" and frequently refer to it throughout the school day! 

Books, Books, and More Books!

I was a classroom teacher before I was a school counselor, and developed a healthy obsession with children's books.  My office has a tiny nook right by the door and I decided that it was the perfect spot to wedge in a tall bookshelf.  All of my books are organized by counseling topic.  Read more about how I organize my counseling library by visiting this post.

I use books most often during classroom lessons, but also read them during small group lessons, and sometimes with individual students.  I also frequently loan books to families when they are dealing with tough situations at home.  I love having so many books available because kids respond so well when they can read about someone else going through a similar situation.  

On the top shelf of the bookshelf, I keep all of my counseling resource books.  I have a lot of great resource books, but my collection does not compare to other counselors' because most of the ideas I use come from blogs, TPT, and digital resources.  The Mrs. Potato Head that I use for my K-1 Meet the Counselor lessons is relaxing by my resource books!  

Technology in School Counseling

One final area of my office that students love is my Apple TV.  It is mounted above my sand tray, so students can easily see it from my small group table.  I can stream digital resources from my computer directly onto the Apple TV.  I love showing YouTube clips during my small group lessons because visual media is very engaging to my students.  I also love using brain breaks from GoNoodle to get students moving or relaxed.  Another great thing about the Apple TV is that I can stream music from iTunes or Pandora to create a relaxing atmosphere in my office.   

I hope you enjoyed the tour around my office!  As a new counselor, I would have loved a post like this because I was completely overwhelmed with setting up a tiny office.  Now that I am in my second year, my space has become the perfect place to work with kids!  If you have any questions about my office, please feel free to ask them in the comments and I will respond to you!  Use the image below to pin my tour and refer back to it later!  Thanks for reading!

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