Back to School Read Alouds

Well it is August 1st, which is always the day my brain switches from summer mode to school mode.  As much as I try to enjoy my last week of summer my teacher brain is never fully turned off.  One of the first things I do is visit my local library and grab all my favorite back to school read alouds.  I love the 1st week of Kindergarten because it is relaxed and there is permission to simply enjoy a good book without having to teach a lesson with it.

So without further ado...here are some of my favorite go to back to school books.

On the First Day of Kindergarten is an adaptation of the 12 days of Christmas so the text repeats and allows the children to know what is coming.  It's a great book to kick off the first day and to read just for fun.

Miss Bindergarten gets Ready for Kindergarten is always a must read in my class and is the first in the Miss Bindergarten series that we read during the year.  Another fun book for the students to enjoy or you can talk about what the kids did to get ready for Kindergarten.

I feel like in order to be a Kindergarten teacher you have to know about this book.  The Kissing Hand is about Chester Raccoon, who doesn't want to go to school.  His mom lets him in on a secret of the kissing hand so that she will always be with him.  Its a great book that naturally leads to how the kids felt about their first day.  

Who doesn't love Pete the Cat?  I use this story to lead into a shoe coloring activity and a tour of the school.  At the end of the book I write a note from Pete the Cat saying he has hidden shoes around the school.  We then go on a classroom tour of the library, office, art room, etc looking for the shoes Pete has hidden talking about each room as we go.  When we come back to the room we color a picture of our school shoes.

David Goes to School is a great read aloud to introduce class rules.  We make a T chart of things David did and things we should do at school.

My least favorite thing about Kindergarten is all the tattling.  I let them tattle the whole first week and then Friday comes along and I read this book and we talk about tattling vs. telling.  And then the next week we keep talking about tattling vs. telling and finally by Halloween I am getting only one tattle a day.  The kids remember the title so they are quick to repeat it when a friends says I am telling on you.  

Too Much Glue is a great book to read right before you talk about using glue.  Matty loves glue!  One day Matty pours a lake of glue before belly-flopping right in the middle and finds himself stuck to the desk.  

Those are some of my favorites.  What are some of yours?

Book Recomendation

This past weekend I went up to a little town in Wisconsin and I took my daughter to their library.  It was a small library with a small children's section but they had tons of little toys for her to play with and she loved it, which gave me time to browse books.  I then came across this gem in their new book section.

What I didn't know is this book isn't so new and many of you out there already knew about it.  Well if you are like me and just finding out about it now here is a summary.

Summary:  It is the first day of school for Penelope Rex and she is excited to meet her new classmates and make some friends.  However it is hard to make friends when you eat all your classmates and the teacher makes you spit them all out.  Penelope later learns a valuable lesson when the class pet, a fish, bites her. 

This is such a cute story and is perfect for a dinosaur unit, back to school or just for a fun read.  You can look for the book at your local library or on Amazon.

Book Recomendation

This week we began our subtraction unit.  I found this fun book last year called Monster Musical Chairs.  I read the book to start the unit and we talk about how the number of monsters is decreasing every time a monster gets out.  After we finish the book we play musical chairs to demonstrate subtraction.  It's a fun and easy way to model subtraction and the kids love it.

You can get the book here on Amazon.

Book Recommendation

I have been a kindergarten teacher for 33 days now.  33 days of not knowing what to expect each day. Each week I think this is it, I've got it and then something turns the day around.  It is only October now and we do have lots of victories.

   One victory is this book I stumbled upon today titled I Knew Two, Who Said Moo.

My kids loved this book.  They loved listening for the rhymes and it was a great way to review the numbers 1-10, both concepts that we have recently been working on.

So if you don't have this book in your classroom I highly recommend it.  You can get it off of Amazon here:

I Knew Two, Who Said Moo