During the last few teacher workdays, I spent most of my time labeling my student library books. My school uses Running Records as our reading assessment and we also use SRI. However, because we have switched to the Common Core our principal said that we would be moving more towards the Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading levels instead of Lexile levels or a RR levels. Because of this, I decided I would use the  Fountas and Pinnell Guided reading level and color code my books. Graduate schools online are an option for busy teachers who are looking to take a course or two during the summer months or school year. Many teachers find masters degrees in reading to be valuable since teaching reading is such a huge part of our jobs.
 I got the idea of course from the wonderful Beth Newingham, if you want to check it out, here is the website http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/ . This website will also help explain how the colors match up with the Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading levels.
I went to the Dollar Store and found stickers that are generally used to label prices on items. I bought about 8 packs. After I began labeling my books an idea struck me. I was thinking about how I was going to require students to read only "Just Right" books during Read to Self or Buddy Reading. My students generally use cereal boxes to store their "Just Right" books in.  I wondered how I would hold students accountable for reading "Just Right" books an idea came to mind. I went online to Oriental Trading and purchased color totes for each student. I chose the set of bags that had a variety of different colors. My idea was that after I knew each child's "Just Right" level, I would give them a colored tote to put their Daily Five books in and the color of their bag would be the same as their "Just Right" color. That way when I am doing reading conferences with students I can easily see if the student's label on their book matches their book bag color. As students "Just Right" level changes, I will replace their tote with the corresponding color.