Back to school season can be both equally exciting and stressful for teachers! Read alouds are one of my favorite ways to build a classroom community, connect with students, and start the new year off showing how much fun reading can be! That’s why I’ve put together a list of the best back to school read-alouds for elementary students to share with you and inspire you during back to school season.
Carefully selecting books for the new school year is important. You may have many different purposes for read alouds during the first few weeks of school, aside from the fact that they are just fun and you want to model fluent reading. You may want to use read alouds to calm students’ nerves, encourage kindness and community, establish classroom procedures, or to introduce new concepts to students.
Whatever your goal is, there is a book for that! I promise! I have seen (and implemented) some of the best lessons across all subject areas and they nearly always started with a read aloud!
Now, this list of back to school read alouds is not all inclusive. There are TONS of different books out there and I am always looking to add more to my list of favorites. These are just ones that I have used or seen that have been big hits with teachers and students alike. So let’s go through the list!
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My List of The Best Back to School Read-Alouds
1. We Don’t Eat Our Classmates
I read this one at the beginning of the year one year and my kids loved it! We used it to establish a classroom community and create our class guidelines. It was engaging and helped them think about how they’d want to be treated and how they want others to treat them.
2. First Day Jitters
This is the perfect read aloud for those kiddos who are extra nervous about the new school year! There are so many fun activities out there to go with this one, like drinking “jitter juice” and writing about their jitters. You can snag my First Day Jitter writing bundle on TPT if you’re looking for an activity to help students calm their nerves those first few days of school. PS: A “Jitter Juice” recipe is included! 🙂
3. The Kissing Hand
This one is perfect for the littles who are worried about being away from their caregivers all day. Pair it with a “kissing hand” craft so students can feel like their loved one is near them all day while they’re away at school. If you are a pre-k, kinder, or firstie teacher, you need this one on your list! (PS: I remember crying for my mommy during 1st grade… I wish I’d had a kissing hand! LOL)
4. Our Class is a Family
This is another great read aloud for building classroom community! Students will love reading this book and then working together as a class to come up with guidelines, a class pledge, or ways to be a good friend! It’s the perfect way to help students feel like they truly belong to their classroom family!
5. If You Take a Mouse to School
I can’t help but add this one to my list of favorites! I love all of the “Mouse” books! They are fun, repetitive, and predictable, which makes them perfects for early readers like pre-k, kinders, and firsties! This one is fun for sequencing or cause and effect, if you’re teaching those early in the year. You might also love to just pair this with a fun writing prompt where students use this as a mentor text to create their own story, for example: “If you take a 1st grader to school…” where they get to write about all the fun things they’d do in the same style that Numeroff uses.
A few other honorable mentions, just because it’s nice to have them all in one spot!
- I Can’t Do That Yet — Perfect for growth mindset!
- How to Get Your Teacher Ready
- The Night Before Kindergarten
- On the First Day of Kindergarten
- The Pigeon Has to Go to School
- Have You Filled a Bucket Today? — Great for classroom community!
Happy back to school season! Let me know in the comments if you have any other favorite back to school read alouds for elementary students! I’d love to add them to my list! 🙂 Also, be sure to PIN this post for later so you don’t lose your ideas!
Happy Teaching!
Megan
