Staple Picture Book Read-Alouds

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Happy 4th of July!

When you’re a new teacher, you’ll find you won’t have the expenses to get all of those quality picture book read-alouds you desire. Instead, you’ll slowly acquire them. The question is, what is worth getting right away for your first year? What are the staple, go-to books?

Every teacher is different, but I’ll give you a list of books I would buy right off the bat:

I typically like at least one read-aloud for each holiday. But because there are a lot of holidays, buy half of what you need this year and borrow the rest from other teachers!

Buy this year:              Borrow this year and buy next year:
-Halloween                  -Thanksgiving
-Christmas                   -St. Patrick’s Day
-Valentines                  -President’s Day
-Seuss                         -Seuss

I have Seuss books on both lists because if you planning on doing an entire week of Dr. Seuss around his birthday, you will need a bunch of Seuss texts. Buy one or two and borrow the rest from other teachers! Also, sometimes Seuss books go on random sales at Target or Kohl’s. GRAB them when you have the chance. Five dollars for one Seuss book is a very good deal.

Here are my Seuss must-haves:

Good book Hortons Hears a Who! Use the Sneetches to teach that you are not better than others and should look for the positive attributes in everybody Ideas for Wacky Wednesday and Dr. Seuss' birthday, March 2nd.

A note about "Wacky Wednesday": I picked this one up randomly when Target had a sale on Seuss books. I read it to my students on a Wednesday for a little amusement, and they were in stitches! We had some pretty intense laugh attacks. First grade is just the right age to appreciate that one!

Here are some of my favorite holiday titles:

Halloween: I picked this up at my local grocery store. It's not too scary and all the kids love Monsters, Inc! My first-graders especially loved when I did Roz's voice from the movie!

Thanksgiving: This is a goofy tale about a turkey trying to avoid his Thanksgiving fate. It has rhyming, too!

 
Christmas: There are several activities you can do around these books. Perfect for the winter holidays.


Valentines Day: I read this because my first-grades LOVE Splat. It was pretty good. I want to try Pete the Cat next time.


St. Patrick's Day: This is an entertaining Irish folktale that's perfect for St. Patrick's Day.
I also like to buy a back-to-school themed book for the first week. My favorite is from the Splat the Cat collection! I do Splat the Cat activities the first week, and my students love Splat!
                                                    
                                                         
                                                         It includes "Back to School, Splat!"

That's it! You'll find your favorite read-aloud books as time goes by, but I wanted to provide you with some ideas to start out with. 

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