Back to School with Picture Books

One of my top tips for back to school time is using picture books to guide the instruction for your classroom procedures and routines.  Over my 18 year career, I've selected my top picture books for this, with new ones sprinkled in as I discover them, of course!  Over the years, I've also compiled activities to go with many of my favorite books.  These activities are intended to be used anywhere from the first day of school through the first month.  They really take the guesswork out of planning as you and your students ease back into a new school year.  

Let's take a look at some of the activities included in this tremendous resource!  

There are lots of written response pages (several formats included for differentiating) to go with many of the books.  I love gauging my students concept of letter formation and sentence structure with these.  By using these response pages, it's easy to get an immediate idea of where each student is in terms of writing. 

Next up are crafts.  Several of the picture books used in this resource include simple crafts to coincide.  Like the writing prompts, the crafts give an opportunity to quickly gauge where students are, specifically with their fine motor skills.  

Sorts and mini-books are excellent extension activities after reading the picture books.  Mini-books are great for searching for punctuation, capital letters, and sight words.  They are also fantastic for some TEACHER DOWN TIME!  Hello, back to school exhaustion.  If you need a few minutes to sit and chill (or pull kids for beginning of the year assessments), give out a mini-book and let kids color them.

Sorts are great for spear-heading classroom discussions about appropriate vs. inappropriate behaviors in various areas of the school.  I always like to complete a sort together on a pocket chart and then let students complete the matching sort in a cut/paste format at their seats.  Having them complete the sort independently helps solidify the information we talked about.

There are many more contents included in this pack...coloring pages, games, behavior management tools, and MORE!!  The majority of the activities included are zero to minimal prep, which helps tired teachers with their planning.

Grab this best-selling resource and take care of your back to school planning in one swoop!  *All the books you'll want to go with the activities included are hyper-linked in the product.  You can check out ALL of my favorite picture books for first grade by clicking HERE (affiliate links).  

xo

Megan