Language shelf tour for 6-9, lower elementary children

I'm in the process of setting up my language shelves at the moment and I thought I would give you a bit of a tour.

My homeschool is over two rooms, the room that used to be our lounge and the spare bedroom. 

This is one of my language shelves. 

The top shelf are 72 phonetic readers based on the Letters and Sounds series. I got them from Junior Learning here in NZ. I understand they also have stores in US, UK and Australia. I bought the whole set after doing lots of research on different phonetic readers. This set have 10 readers that are fiction and 10 that are non fiction. The first level, aqua, introduce letter sounds based on a theme e.g. at the farm. The orange level are 3 letter phonetic words with a small number of sight words which are always introduced on the front page. By the last level the storylines are more complex. I really appreciate the systematic approach and the fact that there is diversity in the stories and characters. 

The bottom shelves are my sound learning sets. Each box has 4 or 5 letter of the alphabet. The box contains the sandpaper letter and a short book or reader focused on the sound. I used this series (this is not an affiliate link!). In front of the box are small boxes with objects for each letter. I've used novelty erasers for most of them! The 'b' box for example contains a ball and a biscuit. If I can't source an actual object I print a small picture, my aim is to have 4 to 5 objects fo each sound.

This is my other language shelf:

On the top is the Waseca Reading Series. (Please click here to get yourself a $15 discount on this series) This is a systematic reading system based on the Orton-Gillingham theory. Each draw isolates a sound pattern. It has a picture card and a word card. There are also booklets for each draw. Waseca also have follow up activities for free on their website. I highly recommend this series. You can read more about how I have used this series here.

Keen observers will note I do not have all of the drawers in the series out!

Continuing with the shelf, On the left hand side, underneath the Waseca, are my word study cards. I bought a set of plastic containers from a local hardware store and have put my first four sets of word study cards inside. I printed the cards onto heavy card, the type used for business cards this means I do not have to laminate and save the planet!

I will add more word study sets as learners progress. 

Set A are compound words (4 sets of words in drawers labelled A1-A4)

Set B are antonyms (4 sets of words in drawers labelled B1-B4)

Set C are classification (4 sets of sorts in drawers labelled C1-C4)

Set D are easy alphabetical order based on first letter (4 sets of sorts in drawers labeled D1-D4) 

The sets I have used are my own as I wasn't happy with the ones I was finding online, you can get them by clicking on the links above.

Below, I have the grammar symbols. Then beside it I have my miniature environment which I got on sale for $20 from a toy store here in NZ. 

I have handwritten labels to go with the objects. We are focusing just on nouns and articles at the moment. I've used the left over bits of card from my word study sets for these.

I do have some space left on the shelf. Whenever I start a class I don't like to have every shelf full for a couple of reasons. Firstly I want to get to know my learners and see what their needs and interests are so I can tailor to these, secondly I want to make sure children are not overwhelmed.

If you are interested in seeing some other classroom tours you might be interested in this series here