Selecting Their Favorite Picture Book Read Alouds of the School Year
We end every day in our fifth grade classroom with a picture book read aloud.
Every. Single. Day.
Over the course of the school year we have had a lot of fun gathering on the rug at the end of each day with a book. It feels like the perfect way to put a bow on each school day.
On the Second day of the school year, I read aloud the previous year’s favorite picture book. I let the kids know that we will select our favorite at the end of our time together. They take this job very seriously.
Every twenty read alouds, I have the kids write down their favorite three read alouds from the twenty books. Each kid has written down about thirty of their favorites from our time together. On Friday, I had them nominate between three and ten of their favorite reads alouds from our time together. It was pretty cool to hear the room buzzing with picture book conversations.
Over the weekend I have been compiling their list and tallying how many votes each book received. We had some kids absent on Friday, so once I get their selections, I’ll compile a list of the ten most nominated books. From there, each kid will vote for a top five, and during the last week of the school year we will reread those five books.
One of the things that I found most interesting about their nominations, is how many different titles received at least one nomination. In total, 70 books were nominated, and no book received more than nine votes (Don’t Trust Fish).
I’m looking forward to seeing which books make the Top 5. Below you can find the list of books that have been nominated (so far). I’m sorry for not including the author and illustrator for each title, with two weeks left in the school year, I just don’t have the time. If you have any questions about a book on the list, just leave a comment, and I’ll try to answer your question.
A Book of Maps for You
A Hungry Lion or a Dwindling Assortment of Animals
Another
Are We There Yet?
Barbed Wire Between Us
Battle Bunny
Be Quiet
Beekle
Big
Blips on a Screen
Broken
Carl
Chalk
Children Make Terrible Pets
Claydate
Creep Carrots
Diffy
Dinosaurs in Space
Don’t Trust Fish
Emily Saw a Door
Except Antartica
Fantastic Bureau of Imagination
Farmhouse
Find the Sun
Fireworks
Flotsam
Gibberish
Girl Running
Goodbye, Koi
Here Come the Aunties
Hidden Gem
Home in a Lunchbox
House Held up By Trees
I Want My Hat Back
I’m Sad
I’m Sorry You Got Mad
Journey
Mr. Tigers Goes Wild
Mr. Wuffles
My Brother is Away
My Teacher is a Monster
Navigating Night
Norman Didn’t Do It
One Little Bag
Our Lake
Puffins!
Quest
Rumpelstiltskin
Sam and Dave Dig a Hole
Santa Bruce
Stalactite and Stalagmite
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Future Book
The Interpreter
The Rabbit Listened
The Underwearwolf
The Whale’s Tale and the Otter’s Side of the Story
The Wolf the Duck & The Mouse
The Yellow Bus
They All Saw a Cat
This is Not My Hat
Togo
True and Lucky Life of a Turtle
Tuesday
Twenty Questions
We are Definently Human
We are Growing
We Don’t Eat our Classmates
While We Wait
Wolfie the Bunny
My district has severely limited the amount of time we can read aloud. It was removed from our daily schedules! I still got in almost a book a day, though. I prioritized and had a basket of must-read picture books to read to my kindergarten class. Many of the books above were in my basket. They are long-held favorites that do not fail to captivate and enthrall. For sure, though, The Future Book has been the highlight of spring and we are using many new futuristic phrases these days.
Kids get it. Don't Trust Fish was swimming around the top of my list too. And now I have a new goal: get these Sharp kids to like me!