Children's Books in the Elementary Counseling Office

When I was a kid, I loved looking around my classroom and enjoyed all my teacher's decorations.  I especially loved my mom's classroom.  She changed her bulletin boards monthly and the room was filled with festive and colorful seasonal decorations.  When I finally got my own counseling office, I was excited to decorate this home away from home.  A co-worker mentioned that the couch, stereo and pictures on my walls were nicer than what he had at home.  I said that I spent most of my day at school so I figured I might as well have a comfortable place to work.  Most of what I use in my office is cast-off from our home, a hand-me-down from a relative or purchased at a garage sale.

Children's Books

Books are an important part of my life and can be incredibly therapeutic.  I had a double major in college in psychology and journalism.  The common thread between these two disciplines is that everyone has a story.  Over the years I have used both bibliotherapy and narrative counseling in my work with children of all ages.

I have a lot of books in my office and the majority of them are inherited from my mom's collection when she retired.  Several of the books are ones that my kids no longer want or need.  I also received a lot of books from a counselor who retired when I was hired in the district.  The antique cabinet housing most of my books on three large shelves is one that my husband found thrown away.  He striped the paint off, sanded and refinished it when I was pregnant with my first born.  When my kids finally had "real" furniture with drawers, I took this cabinet out of my basement and brought it to school and easily filled it with books. 

I only have a few books on display because I found that kids were frequently distracted by my books and asked to read random books.    About ten years ago, my mom gave me the book carousel that actually holds a lot of books.  I keep all my Joy Berry books and several theme books on this.  Another way I group books is by using high quality book boxes I have had at least 10-12 years.  I used to use these colorful cardboard boxes to organize my character education books by character trait.