Read Aloud Books For October 22

This is our class book for October. "Thanks for..." details the things that the students are thankful for in their world. The children were thankful for everything from their parents to pizza! Each child glued the typed words and his/her photo on a piece of paper and then they drew a picture to go with it. The books were read aloud to the class. It was wonderful to see the pride on each child's face as his/her page was read aloud!

This non-fiction book is a great overview of a farm. It talks about the buildings, the land and the animals. I chose this book to get the students thinking about our trip to the farm next week. The photographs are clear and the text is written in kindergarten appropriate language. After reading this book, we listed the animals that could be found on a farm and then sang the song "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" using the animal names we wrote down.

This is a great book for playing with language. I chose this book because it brought together two of the things our class is talking about, trees and the alphabet. I also happened to have bought a version of this book that came with a CD that had the musician, Ray Charles, reading aloud the story. I had the students lie down on the carpets and close their eyes to listen to the story. It was a good introduction to the fact that you can listen to a story and make the pictures in your mind.

Read Aloud Books for October 15

This is reprint of a lovely book from the late 1950's. It details many reasons why trees are important to our world. It provides a great starting point for discussion with the students about the role of trees in our lives and how trees change through the seasons. At the end of the story, it talks about planting trees and how to take care of them. I a lso like this book because the illustrator, Marc Simont, also illustrated the wonderful early reader series, "Nate The Great".

The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger is a wonderful find! The little yellow leaf is all alone and unsure about leaving the security of his tree but when he finds another leaf still clinging to its branch they decide to take the leap together. The story is told in a spare, lyrical way and it complimented by the muted colour palette of the collaged illustrations. We read this book twice in our class this week and the students really understood the book's message and how the little yellow leaf felt at the end of the story.

I read the "big book" version of this Robert Munsch story to the class. My own children loved this funny tale of a mud puddle that hides and jumps on Jule-Ann and gets her "all over muddy". The mud puddle hides in an apple tree, on the roof of the house and even jumps over the fence! Jule-Ann is a clever little girl and uses her brain to outsmart the mud puddle. This story is excellent for the students to act out, to demonstrate their understanding of the story structure. Our class will do this next week.

Read Aloud Books for October 8

This is a real gem for teachers wanting a simple, Canadian book about Thanksgiving. It describes the changes happening outside during October and how one family works together to not only create a special meal, but also to spend some quality time together. It also details how each member of the family is thankful for something special in his/her life.
Our class used the books' text format, "Thanks for..." to create pages for a class book.
This is a simple, clear book with beautiful illustrations. It talks specifically about leaves and the changes that trees go through during autumn.

This is a great companion book to Zoe Hall's "Fall Leaves Fall". It details the growing and harvesting of pumpkins and the role pumpkins play as a symbol for autumn and Halloween.

Read Aloud Books for October 1

This is another classic for children starring the lovable character, Curious George the monkey. Despite the old-fashioned references (like pipe smoking), this is still a tale that captures the interest of children. This was the first book published and, if your child likes this book, there are many Curious George books that follow the little monkey through various adventures. Curious George encounters many challenges but always learns a valuable lesson at the end of the story.

This is a very clever book. The premise is that there is a make-believe world where when a character reads a book about a particular subject, pictures of that subject appear all over the character. For example, when a man read a book about flowers, he became flowers. When a mouse read a book about elephants, pictures of elephants were all over him. The collage-style illustrations are fascinating, with levels of detail that will have you finding something new every time you look at them. I like to talk to the students about how when a reader reads a book the information gets inside them and in this story, the information inside can actually be seen. A lovely, visual treat.

This is a multi-level book that is, on the surface a counting book. On the first reading that is the emphasis. However, it is also about growing vegetables and fruit and also about how one seed can produce multiple fruit and vegetables that, in turn, produce many seeds.
At the end of the book, it talks about how 10 seeds grew 10 corn plants with 100 ears of corn and 1000's of kernels. These kernels in turn, can make delicious popcorn. This is the type of book that will be referred to throughout the school year. It's also a good link to having a "popcorn" party for your class.

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.