December read aloud books for your kindergarten and first-grade classroom! These fun December books are great for Winter! December Read Aloud Favorites December is here! Wow, this year is going quick! Check out a few of my December read aloud favorites to share with students throughout the month of December. One Snowy Night by M. Christina Butler Follow the adventures of Little Hedgehog after he wakes up from his hibernation. ...
Seasons & Themes
22 Halloween Books for Kindergarten (FREE File)
Halloween Books for Kindergarten. These 22 books are great for kindergarten or first-grade. Your students will love these Halloween picture books! A free reading response file is also available. note: This blog post contains affiliate links, but the opinions are my own. Halloween Books for Kindergarten I may have a problem! I have so many books and I STILL feel like I need more. When I thought about writing this ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Week 13 Leonardo the Terrible Monster
Leonardo the Terrible Monster Lesson Plans for kindergarten and first-grade! NOTE: This blog post contains affiliate links, but the ideas are my own. Reading Lesson Ideas for Leonardo the Terrible Monster Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems is such a fun book! We knew we had to include it in our Engaging Readers lesson plans! The pictures are perfect! Not only could you use this book for reading ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Week 12 Bat Loves the Night
Bat Loves the Night lesson plans and ideas for reading, writing, math, craft and center activities too. Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 12 Bat Loves the Night are here! NOTE: This blog post includes affiliate links, but my opinions are my own. Bat Loves the Night Read Aloud Lesson Ideas Nicola Davies is one of my favorite authors. I love how she couples informational text with a narrative text. Not only is ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Week 11 A Creepy Pair of Underwear (Free Math Files Too)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 11 featuring the book, A Creepy Pair of Underwear. NOTE: This blog post contains affiliate links but the ideas are my own. Lesson Plans: Read Aloud We loved the book Creepy Carrots so much we knew we had to have Aaron Reynold's book, A Creepy Pair of Underwear! Jasper desperately wants a pair of Creepy Underwear. His mom is doubtful. I love the mom's ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 8 How Do Apples Grow? (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 8 featuring ideas for How Do Apples Grow! How Does an Apple Grow Reading Lessons I love this book because it has a lot of information about apples and the illustrations are beautiful! However, a word to the wise. There are discussions in this book about male parts and female parts. 😳 So you may want to skim and scan over these sections...or you may want to brace yourself for a whole ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 6 The Recess Queen (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 6 featuring ideas for The Recess Queen! If you look at this book, you can tell it is a little frayed around the edges... Yes! I love it that much! The Recess Queen Read-Aloud Lessons The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill is a great back to school book, but it can honestly be used at any point during the year. We included this book selection in our reading units. You can find the ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 5 Chrysanthemum (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 5 featuring ideas for Chrysanthemum! Let's do this! (NOTE: This blog post contains affiliate links, but the ideas are my own.) Week 5 Lesson Plans for Reading Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes is a class favorite. You can also find the video on Amazon Prime! SWEET! You can click: Chrysanthemum Video to view ...
Kindergarten Lesson Plans – Week 4 Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse (FREE file)
Kindergarten Lesson Plans Week 4 featuring ideas for Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse! Woo HOO! Week 4 Lesson Plans for Reading We love Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes! It is a MUST read every year with our Engaging Readers units. The retell cards really provide a structure for students to practice noticing the text key ideas. They also help build students' oral language as they practice retelling the ...
7 Alphabet Books for Kindergarten and a FREE file TOO!
I want to share with you 7 alphabet books for kindergarten! I have had some of these books FOR. EVER! BUT they are still just as great as ever. NOTE: This blog post contains affiliate links, but the ideas expressed are my own. Alpha Oops! The Day Z Went First Alpha Oops! The Day Z Went First is such a fun book! It asks the question... What if Z went first? It sort of turns into a mess. There are ...
Color Activities for Back to School
Ahh... back to school time! So many fun days are ahead of you! Here are some color activities for kindergarten that will help start your year off GREAT! Books About Color There are some great books about color! There are some old favorites on this list and a few new ones. Mouse Paint and Mix It Up! are two books about combining colors. They are a great way to start the year off! But The Day the Crayons Quite ...
First few days of school
The first few days of school can make even a seasoned kindergarten teacher nervous. Let me show you how our week looks. We had our first day of kindergarten on Wednesday and it was such great fun! Let me show you want the first few days entailed. If you want to see my lesson plans for the first week of school, click {here}. The Overhead Station It always cracks me up how the overhead station is always the coolest one! ...
City Dog, Country Frog Activity Ideas and more
City Dog Country Frog Activities and Mentor Text lesson ideas are here! Find reading comprehension and writing ideas to use with this amazing book by Mo Willems. City Dog, Country Frog Mentor Text I don't remember the exact moment I fell in love with City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems. I think it was actually a love at first sight sort of thing. I love the theme that two individuals who are so different can still find a true ...
Are you ready for April?
April kindergarten activities and lesson plan ideas! This blog post is filled with Spring classroom ideas for read-aloud, spring literacy centers, spring math centers, and more! Plus a free lesson planning guide for you! April Book Activities We sure love books! Here are a few that we love to teach with in April. Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens. You can see a blog post on this book with a free file: Tops and Bottoms ...
What if You Had Animal Parts Lesson Plans.. Looking at text details
What if you had animal parts lesson plans for kindergarten and first grade! My students have always loved these books and we are really excited to that we are creating a new Engaging Reader series for these an awesome read aloud! What if you had animal parts books! If you are not familiar with these books, here is a peek! These are the four books (affiliate links) we wrote lesson plans for: What If You Had Animal Feet? What If ...
The Winter Games in the Classroom
Winter Games Lesson Ideas are great for the Winter Olympics or anytime it turns cold. Here are a few suggestions for you! Winter Games Read Aloud These three books (affiliate links) are wonderful for discussing the Winter Olympics: Tacky and the Winter Games brings back our favorite penguin, Tacky. His penguin friends are getting ready to compete in the winter games. Olympig is the story of Boomer the Pig who is really not ...
Snow by Cynthia Rylant Lesson Plans
Cynthia Rylant's Snow Lesson Plans! Snow by Cynthia Rylant Read Aloud We love the beautiful language in Cynthia Rylant's book Snow (affiliate link). You might say that I am a Cynthia Rylant junkie! This is a book that you will want in your collection! In our reading comprehension units, we work on figurative language using this book. Snow Science I am a ...
Snowmen at Night Lesson Plans (Free Activity TOO!)
Snowmen at Night Lesson Plans are here! My class has always loved this sweet book. We begin the week's lesson by reading it over and over. Snowmen at Night was written by Caralyn Buehner and illustrated by her husband, Mark Buehner. The rhyming in the text makes it fantastic for strengthening our phonemic awareness and the illustrations are spectacular! Snowmen at Night: Text Details We knew we had to include ...
The Mitten Reading Comprehension FUN! (psst… FREE unit)
The Mitten reading comprehension unit for kindergarten. This was one of my son's favorite winter books when he was growing up, so naturally, it became one of the books that we read over and over again! The Mitten Perhaps you have heard about our Guiding Readers Reading Comprehension units, but you have not tried them yet. Or perhaps you have, but you would simply love to add this book to your collection! [My hand is raised ...
Are you ready for Winter? January Math and Literacy Planning!
Winter kindergarten classroom activities to use in January? You got it! Plus a free planning guide! Perhaps you are squeezing in the last few days of winter break or maybe you are already looking forward to January. I hope this post helps you prepare without the stress! Winter Literacy Activities Here is a little peek at what my writing center looks like. I introduce this fun station in August, but by changing out the ...
Polar Express Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade
Polar Express Classroom Activities for kindergarten and first grade. These fun lesson plans are perfect for Christmas time! Polar Express Close Reading Activities Just like our other Reading Comprehension/Close Reading plans, this Polar Express version is PACKED with reading comprehension activities! We have added questions to help guide your students towards deep comprehension! Students also work on retelling the book with text ...
Are you ready for December? Ideas and Resources … plus a free file!
December kindergarten resources are here! Ready or not! November seemed to fly by... blink and you will be knee deep in December! It is such a BUSY time of the year for most people, but for teachers, it can be down-right overwhelming. I have gathered some ideas you can use for December in your classroom. December kindergarten resources: Books to read So many books... so little time! Here are a few ...
Are you ready for October?
Kindergarten October Activity Guide is here! October is such a fun (but busy) month. I thought I would round up resources to help you make the most of your month! Books to read in October (affiliate links) Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson We can then complete the Pumpkin Lifecycle activity. Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon We love this fun craft from our Guiding Readers ...
Using Mentor Texts in Kindergarten
Kindergarten Mentor Texts to teach reading and writing with Cynthia Rylant's Scarecrow book (affiliate link)... you bet! This last week I had the pleasure of visiting a kindergarten classroom. She had already started the book, Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant for her Guiding Readers/Close Read, so when she asked me to do a lesson on word choice... I could not contain my excitement. This book is PERFECT for word choice (among other ...