Do you love picture books? I know that’s a silly question for my audience of teachers but I am curious how you use picture books to teach. Reading them aloud for pleasure and enjoyment is important for sure! It’s vital for your students to see you read a book with expression, thinking aloud about the characters or problem and responding and just laughing or enjoying the book. All very important! Kids need to see adults enjoy books and have a love of reading. There are also so many other ways to use picture books in the classroom and I wanted to share some with you. I’m going to give you some picture book ideas to use for each month of the year: starting with August. As the year goes on I will add a month so before 2017 ends you will have ideas to use with several picture books for several topics for the entire year!
I love to read a couple books in August for back to school. A few great ones for the younger guys ( preschool – 1st grade ) are Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, The Rainbow Fish and Chrysanthemum. A couple I like for the older kids ( 2 – 3rd grade ) – My Mouth is a Volcano and Officer Buckle and Gloria.
Why do I love these for the younger kids you ask…there are several reasons!
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is wonderful for teaching the letters of the alphabet in a fun, ‘catchy’ way. Grabbing the audio from Scholastic is another great idea. My first graders loved singing the Chicka Chicka song. There are so many extensions you can do with this book: snack: celery stick with alpha letters to spell their names, art: palm tree with their letters of their name going up or down the tree or a class book. I have a fun pack that you can use when you are reading this book:
If you Give a Mouse a Cookie is great because it is a predictable, circle story that kids can be successful with predicting. So even if they aren’t fluent ‘readers’ yet, they can predict what the mouse will do/say which will give them confidence and success early in the year in K or 1.
Or if you like her books you can grab the bundle: these response packs are PERFECT for an unexpected sub day.
The Rainbow Fish is awesome for talking about friendship and sharing. Perfect for the first month of school for preschool – 1st graders. Also talking about how the character changed over the course of the story is always a great discussion to have with your students. I have lots of response activities and a fun craft to do with this book.
Chrysanthemum is a fantastic read for the beginning of the year for the little guys but also for the older kids too. It covers so many topics from bullying, name activities, how to be a friend and more.
If you teach 2nd – 3rd grade another great read is Officer Buckle and Gloria. I love this book because it talks alot about the importance of school/classroom rules. There’s no better time than back to school to read this since you are covering rules anyway. It’s a favorite among this age for sure.
I also love reading My Mouth is a Volcano with these guys. Even in 2nd and 3rd grade we are dealing with blurting out and this seems to help a bit. It’s a great book to use when talking about rules and self control too.
I can’t wait to continue sharing my favorite books each month with you! Book activities and responses are a great way to teach certain skills and concepts too like character traits, theme, etc. Be sure to check back in next month for my newest book response ideas for the classroom! Happy Teaching! xo,
