One of my favorite times of the school year is back-to-school time, simply for the read alouds. I love being able to make a book come alive for a little one! That means voices, theatrics, and everything! I usually begin the year with reading for enjoyment and introducing concepts of print. Then I dive a little deeper into a book, and I begin to lay those foundational skills for comprehension. This takes a lot of continuous modeling, but it’s so worth it!
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Kevin Knows the Rules
Kevin Knows the Rules is a book that was unknown to me before last year. My sweet friend Keri introduced this book to me, and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard of it before. Any book about rules and procedures in a classroom and I’m sold! I love how it shows Kevin actually obeying the rules, so it is a model for the students to look at. This is a great place to discuss how we as the readers actually know that Kevin is following the rules!
The Little School Bus
Some of you might recognize this gem of a book if you were fortunate enough to come across a certain reading program. It is absolutely hilarious and I will never part with it! It has a fun story, and repeating text. I love looking at the pictures because they tell another story! Your students can practice rhymes and learn about characters and setting as well as sequence story events with The Little School Bus.
The Recess Queen
Mean Jean and Katie Sue are the best literary pair this century. The Recess Queen is the perfect book for discussing appropriate behaviors on the playground, as well as how we should and should not treat every person that we come across. With this book we focus on characters and setting of the story, as well as specific character traits for Mean Jean and Katie Sue.
What I Like About Me
The children that are featured in What I Like About Me are as different as can be, and they are proud to show off what makes them unique. The focus for this book is to introduce characters and settings, and provides an opportunity for students to focus on what makes us all unique. In addition to writing pages, students can also create a craft.
Each resource contains headers that can be used to create anchor charts and each book companion contains a craft as well. You can find the book companions here, and you can grab the books from Amazon here.
