Veteran teachers Share 11 Awesome First Day Read-Alouds

As another school year gets underway, many of us are squeezing in a few last vacation days before heading in to set up this year's classroom. Some of us are trying to make sense of chaos as we get ready for Meet the Teacher Day. And some of us already have classrooms full of kids. With that in mind, I asked some veteran teachers to share their favorite first-day read-alouds. I got some great responses and I'm happy to pass them along.

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Let's start with my new favorite first day book. 

The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson is a wonderful book about how we all feel like outsiders until we begin to share our stories. Once we are brave enough to do that, we discover that we are not so different after all. I'm looking forward to sharing it with my third graders this year as we build a classroom community where individual differences are appreciated, respected, and valued. 

Veteran teachers Becky from Overheard in Kindergarten, Crystal from Primary on the Prowl, and Brianna Krebs rave about First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg. Crystal even wrote a blog post about how she makes Jitter Juice with her class. Such a fun way to start the year! Brianna says, "Always a "go to" for me! Teaches my kiddos that their teacher was just as "nervous" for the first day of school as they were!"

Becky's second recommendation is Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. She says, "I like to tell the class what I did to get ready for kindergarten. Then, have students practice taking turns to speak and share what they did to get ready for kindergarten."






Becky's third recommendation is a new favorite, The Pigeon HAS to Go to School by Mo Willems.







Kelli from Kelli C's First Grade recommends two books. The first is The Secret Shortcut by Mark Teague.

 Kelli's second pick is Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann. "They talk about safety tips at schools.. we use this to open up a discussion for our classroom rules and we talk about making the classroom a safe place."

Yvonne from Journeyed Transformations recommends You're Finally Here! by Mélanie Watt. She pairs the book with some fun activities created by Linda Kamp.

Kayla from K's Classroom Kreations loves to use the book, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes with her first grade class. 

Literary Sherri recommends The Teacher from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler. "It makes students laugh and puts them at ease. :)"

For our final recommendation, veteran teacher Pat McFadyen says, "As a math/science teacher, I loved reading Math Curse the first day! It's funny and I could share my love of math humor!" What a great way to help students see that learning math is fun!

What are your favorite first day read alouds? Post them in the comments below.

Have an awesome school year!

Becoming a Reader

My great-nephew Ben is a reader. He loves books and stories. The picture I used above is from 2 years ago when he had just finished first grade. Mo Willems had become a favorite author and I had just given him several new Elephant and Piggie stories. 

Today, he sent me a picture of his favorite lines and illustration from The Wild Robot by Peter Brown. He wanted to share them with me because he knew that we have something important in common - we are both readers.

It occurred to me as I was reading his text that I don’t remember learning how to read. 

I don’t remember memorizing sight words or practice sessions with flash cards. 

I know I probably did reading worksheets in school, but I don’t remember doing them.

I grew up in the age of round-robin reading, Dick and Jane books, and bluebird, redbird, brown bird reading groups. But that’s not what I remember.

I remember singing alphabet songs, reciting nursery rhymes, and gathering for story time at the foot of my teacher’s rocking chair.

I remember sitting on my mommy’s lap while she read us a book. I remember sitting by her side as she encouraged me to sound out a word in Mr. Brown Can Moo.

I remember seeing my mom, dad, grandfather, and grandmother reading books and newspapers. 

I remember sitting at the dining room table as my grandfather read my brother and me the Sunday Funnies.

I remember playing the billboard game on every single road trip. My brother, sister and I would compete to find words starting with a-z on road signs and billboards. Whoever reached the end of the alphabet first would win. 

I remember going to the library and searching for Babar and Harold and the Purple Crayon books. I remember how excited I was at 5 years old when I got my very own library card with my name on it.

I remember discovering new series and being encouraged to read every biography in the children’s section. 

I remember reading books to my little sister, sharing my favorite stories and authors with her.

As a child in poverty, I remember how excited I was to gather a stack of books to trade for credit at the used bookstore. Checking out with a stack of new books. Riding in the backseat of the car to the park trying to decide which one to read first. Losing myself in a story while nestled in the trunk of a sprawling banyan tree.

I remember reading the Little House books because my mom loved them as a child, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because the librarian thought I might like it, The Hobbit because my brother was reading it, and Charlotte’s Web because my teacher read it out loud to our class.

I remember receiving books as Christmas presents and Birthday presents. I couldn't wait until all the excitement was over so I could dive into a new world.


No, I don’t remember learning how to read.

I just have wonderful memories of becoming a reader. 

My great-nephew sent me these pictures from The Wild Robot
by Peter Brown. He said it's a sad book, but it makes him happy.

I suspect Ben is the same way. He doesn't remember or care how he learned to read. He became a reader in a family of readers. He's a reader who truly enjoys reading and loves sharing that joy with others. He is a reader because he loves stories. He's a reader because he sees examples of readers in his own life. He's a reader because after Mo Willems, he found more favorite authors and more favorite books and more favorite series. He's a reader because he has learned not only how to read well, but to find joy and comfort in books. He has become a reader. 

I think one of my most important jobs as a teacher is to help more kids to be like Ben - to help them become readers, too. I try to help students become readers by modeling my own love of reading, by sharing my excitement when I find a new author or story that I love, by recommending books I think they will love, by reading aloud each and every day.

What about you? How do you ensure your students are becoming readers?

Five for Fraturday

Happy Saturday!  I'm back to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and share five things from this week.  

I love Dr. Seuss' birthday week, don't you? This week our school celebrated Read Across America week. My kids loved it!

I'm cheating a little bit because I forgot to take a selfie this time. The photo is from last year, but, of course, I had to wear my Cat in the Hat outfit again. 

Our lovely school nurse, Mrs. A. came in and read to my class on Friday.  She read the book, Inside Your Outside: All About the Human Body from the Dr. Seuss Learning Library.She had the kids rhyming right along with the text and made learning about the human body fun. We're lucky to have a school nurse who's a fantastic teacher, too.

We also had a visit from our local theme park. The Carowinds Reading Program sent a reader and a surprise guest. They were also kind enough to give each of our students a bookmark with a free pass to Carowinds attached to it. The kids absolutely went bonkers - in a good way. 

Wednesday was Wacky Wednesday, of course.  We spent a lot of way too much reading time looking for all the crazy things in the illustrations, but the kids loved it! Afterward, we did some critical thinking and writing about the book, so that made the time spent worthwhile.

Ultra mega mega fun, indeed.

I very sneakily planned some social skills lessons this week, too.  Last week, we had worked on determining the lesson or moral of a fable.  This week, I used some modern-day fables written by Dr. Seuss to talk about accepting differences (The Sneetches) and compromising with others (The Zax). Both of these great stories can be found in The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss.

That's it for this week. Make sure you check out all the great Five for Friday posts from my fellow bloggers. And don't forget to check my blog on Monday for this month's Math Tip Monday post. I'll share some ideas for connecting math and poetry in the primary grades.

Five for Fraturday

I'm back with the Saturday edition of Five for Friday (also known as Five for Fraturday). Thank you to Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting!

I don't care what the calendar says - February is a ridiculously long month! Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day, Dental Health month, Black History month, snow days, picture days, Science Fair projects, parent conferences - it's exhausting trying to fit it all in and also teach the curriculum we are required to teach. I'll be glad when this month is over. Not that I'm counting, but, at least there are only 5 weeks to go until Spring Break!

Here's a picture of my cat, Boots. He loves boxes. We're getting some things together to donate, so I pulled some boxes out of the garage. I set this one down and he immediately jumped in. Isn't he cute?

My class and I love the videos and inspirational quotes from Kid President. When we found out he had surgery on Monday, we just had to make some get well cards to send. Here's my favorite one:

For those of you who don't know, Kid President, whose real name is Robby, suffers from Osteogenesis Imperfecta. He had surgery to replace a rod in his leg. I follow his Facebook page and, according to his brother-in-law, Brad, the surgery went well and they hope to get back to making videos soon.

Presidents' Day was originally supposed to be a Teacher Workday for us. Then it was a snow make-up day, so we were supposed to have school. On Monday, there was a last minute cancelation due to the weather forecast of a wintry mix in our area. So, no school for students and an optional teacher workday for us. Now we have to make it up on Memorial Day. To add insult to injury, although there were reports of ice and slick roads in the northern part of our county, we didn't get any snow/sleet/ice at all where I live. Sigh. The joys of living in the south during the winter.

So, we learned about the President's job this week. I shared my One Day When I Am President poem from my Patriotic Poems and Activities for Primary Grades.

After we read and discussed the poem, we read this book:

We talked about what would be important to us if one of us became President one day. Here are a few of my favorite written responses. If only our elected leaders would listen to the nation's children, right?

Don't they all look very presidential?

This one's my favorite. It gave me a giggle and a warm fuzzy as it reminded me of the innocence of children.

Our STEAM Night is next Thursday. We're scrambling to get our science project done in time. This year, I decided to have my students investigate what happens to a liquid when it freezes. I found a great project idea on www.education.com. My kids were so excited about it. I wish we had time to do more activities like this.

We'll probably do some follow up activities and finish up the board next week. I'll try to share some better pictures in next week's Five for Friday.

So, that's it for this week. Now I better get busy and get all my weekend chores done. Don't forget to check out this week's other great Five for Friday posts!