I spend a lot of time reading the very best children's books I can find and then build on the ideas, characters, or illustrations from those books. The goal of each read-aloud experience is to help young children develop a love for reading and to build connections between reading and their everyday world.
Below are many of my absolute favorite read-aloud books along with a few ideas to keep the story going all around the classroom.
Waking up our bears
We are waking our bears after a long winter’s sleep. Come and see our celebration of our hibernation in preschool!
Time to hibernate
We are stuffing bears and putting them down for a long winter’s nap for a lesson on hibernation.
After christmas for the birds
Perhaps you are one of the many who are in the process of taking down the Christmas tree. Well don’t be too quick to think Christmas has to be completely over yet!
Marvelous mittens
The Mitten is one of our favorite winter stories to share with our preschool children. Today I’m sharing a few activities to go along with the book.
How your students can discover the sweet smells of Christmas!
A fun book and simple activity to get you talking about your sense of smell during the Christmas season.
Give your class the gift of nothing
Today, we had fun putting a new spin on the gift giving process with the help of a new book and an empty box. Come and see how we enjoyed the Gift of Nothing!
Our Thanksgiving Feast in preschool
My students cooked up their own Thanksgiving feast to serve up for our classroom family. Teach Preschool wishes you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving too!
My, oh my! We like to make pies!
We had two different kinds of pie on our agenda but to start off our pie making experiences, we read the book “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie.”
Exploring cornucopias
Holidays present the opportunity to introduce new words and ideas in our classroom. This Thanksgiving, we introduced cornucopias.
Whooooo is missing?
Our children just love story book games! We read a story during circle time and then often follow it up with some sort of learning
End of the Rainbow Fruit Salad storybook giveaway
We are reviewing the book “End of the Rainbow Fruit Salad” and giving away one free copy so check it out!
Going on a looking walk
After reading “The Looking Book,” I gave each child their own pair of lookers to wear so we could head outdoors and take our own looking walk!
The itsy bitsy play about spiders in prek
Our Pre-K class explored the Itsy Bitsy Spider by making an itsy bitsy play. We began by talking about four key words in our song: spout, rain, sun, and spider.
Itsy bitsy spider water play
We have been singing and reading about the Itsy Bitsy Spider and my oh my this is truly a fun song or rhyme to extend into some Itsy Bitsy waterplay!
Learning with leaves
After gathering a set of leaves, the children explored the leaves by sorting them on our table chart and making leaf confetti!
Tapping our own magic table top tree
After tapping and blowing on our book, we went over to the table to essentially retell our story by exploring our own Tap the Magic Tabletop Tree!.
Simple shape games on the felt board
The kinds of games we play with the felt board are not all that complicated and all I really need are just a few bight and colorful felt pieces and I have everyone’s attention.
Small, tall, fall
When I come across a picture book that has a few very carefully chosen words along with amazing illustrations, I get so excited. The book titled, “Tall” by Jez Alborough was the perfect book to get us talking about the words, “small, tall, and fall.”
I Spy Me!
Celebrating me thought this simple to make “I Spy Me!” board in our preschool classroom.
Exploring numbers with lines and dots
We spent time exploring numbers and drawing lines by making our own dot-to-dots after reading the book “Chicka Chick 123” by Bill Martin Jr.
Drawing and story telling with a purple crayon
While I read the classic tale of “Harold and the Purple Crayon” to my students, I invited them to tell me their own purple crayon story.
Neighborhood under construction in preschool
This must be at the top of the my list of favorite days/activities we did in the preschool classroom last year. Stop by and see how we built our own neighborhood!
Making rainbow fish puzzles in preschool
As part of our exploration of fish, the children created their own sparkly rainbow fish puzzles!
Fish in the water
Exploring the world of fish though art and a favorite children’s book!