Read Aloud Books for September 24

These books were written by the students in Room 101. The text was based on the book, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" (see the September 17 post). Instead of pictures of animals, there are photographs of the children. This book, with easy, predictable text is perfect for the students to read or "pretend read". This is a wonderful way for all the students to feel good about reading a book on their own (as well as learning the names of the students in the class).

This is a Dr. Seuss classic! The combination of rhyming words and crazy creatures never fails to captivate the attention of the children. This book was a favourite of my own children, and so I have probably read this book at least 100 times. If you are looking for stories to help children develop phonemic awareness (awareness of the individual sounds in words), Dr. Seuss books are some of the best.

Ah, the little red fish...where does it go? This is a wonderfully original book, with beautifully crafted illustrations. JeJe brings his pet fish to the library and the fish escapes to have an adventure inside a book. Some pages are without text and allow for some deep discussions about what is happening in the story.

This book is another classic. I read this book when I was a child. The little boy wishes for duck feet (and other changes) and ultimately realizes that he is happiest just the way he is. This was a good story to talk to the class about what the boy learned in the story.

A crazy story that features a crabby pig who is trying to write a book and constantly asks the reader to stop bothering him so he can get back to work. The children always enjoy the funny illustrations and the odd feeling that we are "breaking the rules" by opening the book and turning the pages even though the pig keeps asking us not to...

Read Aloud Books for September 17

We read a book called "My Goldfish" by Christine Butterworth which, unfortunately, is out-of-print. I found a similar book on goldfish on amazon.ca. Our class is doing a unit on fish, so this type of non-fiction story is good for the students to learn facts about fish. This book was used as a launching point for our discussion of the differences between humans (living on land) and fish (living in water).


This is a classic story from Bill Martin, Jr. and the incomparable illustrator, Eric Carle. The combination of beautiful collage pictures and the bouncy, predictable text makes for a wonderful read aloud for the students. After a few pages, the students pick up on the word pattern, take clues from the illustrations and begin to read along. After hearing the story read twice, students were seen in the reading corner, with this book, "reading" the story aloud.
Watch for our class version of this story, "Kindergarten, Kindergarten, What Do You See?", coming next week...


One of my very favourite stories, "Swimmy" by author/illustrator, Leo Leonni, was read to the students twice this week, as a link to our study of fish. I like to call this kind of book a "thinking story" because the depth of the storyline allows for lots of discussion. Swimmy was a brave fish that was not like the others, but he used his differences to ultimately be a hero and save the day. We also learned that great things can be accomplished when we work together.

Read Aloud Books for September 10

During this four-day week, the class listened to 4 books. One was "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn, mentioned in the August 30th posting. Here are the others:

This is a classic story by Robert Munsch (a Canadian author). When we read the story together, the students would read along with the words, "This is kindergarten. In kindergarten we share. We share everything!" A humourous look at sharing.

I chose this book because we could make connections to our class pet fish. It is a very good story to help the students identify the "problem" in the story and then how the problem is solved. A very funny book with simple language that kept the students' interest to the very end. It was also good as a talking point for the "lesson learned" in the story. The children quickly learned the refrain, about feeding the fish "never more than a spot, or something may happen, you never know what!"

I chose this book because it is about friendship and, because it begins in a pet store, it is a good opportunity to make a connection to the book "Fish Out of Water". We talked about how Brian the guinea pig was feeling sad when his best friend Bob went away and how he almost "burst" with happiness when he saw him again.