Miss Lee's Library

What Do You Do With an Idea? is a very encouraging book! This book is about a young boy who has an idea and is afraid to share it. The boy is worried no one will like his idea, and he is scared it is a bad idea. The boy grows more and more confident with his idea, and he eventually realizes that ideas are always great and should be shared! The boys idea ends up changing the world. This book is so wonderful because it can inspire our perfect shy students to share with the class more, and it would help students know that we love hearing their thoughts and ideas. What Do You Do With an Idea? would be best as a read aloud to grades 2nd-5th.This book would ignite a wonderful class discussion about why it is important to share our ideas. The teacher could have the students write and illustrate a way they could make the world a better place, or write about the feelings the felt during and after the book.  

Lexile Level: AD340L

Giraffes Can't Dance is a book about Gerald the Giraffe. Other animals make fun of him when he tries to dance because he is clumsy and seems to be an ineloquent dancer. By the end of the book, Gerald believes in himself and ends up realizing that he is a beautiful dancer! All of the other animals realize this too, and they begin admiring him and praising his dancing skills. This book is an encouraging book that tells the readers he or she can do anything as long as they believe in themselves! I would do a read aloud with this book to grades 1st-5th grade. An activity students could do with this book is to pick an animal from the story to do an animal study. Other activities could be to look at the rhyming words or figurative language in this story! There are also many writing opportunities with this story. One writing prompt could be to write about a time the student did not think he or she could do something and how they overcame it.

Lexile Level: AD450L 

What Pet Should I Get? is about a little boy and girl who cannot decide what pet to get from the pet store. This book would be cute for a read aloud to grades 1st-4th. Since the book features a lot of different animals as pets, it would be really cute to do a "Create Your Own Pet" creative activity! The students could illustrate and write about his or her perfect pet. It would be so cute to see what the students come up with.

Lexile Level: AD200L

Oh, the Places You'll Go! is a book about the journey of life. It is very inspiring! This book tells the reader that wherever you go, it will be great. This book would be a good read aloud for grades 1st-5th. For the older grades, students can research a place he or she would like to travel to and why. The students could also do this in groups and create a poster about the place and present to the class. There are many writing prompts that could be generated from this text. Teachers could do a goal setting activity or writing activity in the beginning of the year with this book and bring it back out at the end of the school year to reflect on his or her accomplishments.

Lexile Level: AD600L

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is such a perfect book to include science in your ELA lesson! This book focuses on a hungry caterpillar that turns into a butterfly. This would be an awesome book to mix some science into your lesson and learn about caterpillars and butterflies. A teacher could use this book to look into these insects and possibly a sequencing lesson. For example, the class could go back and list what he ate on Monday, then on Tuesday, and so on. For the younger grades, they could practice sequencing with pictures of the food he ate. I believe this book would make a great read aloud with K-2nd grade.

Lexile Level: AD460L 

The Snowy Day is a well-known and popular children's book. It has beautiful abstract art throughout the whole book. It is about a young girl who plays outside in the snow. This would be a good read aloud for grades 1st-2nd. This would be a perfect book to read during the winter. The students could write and/or illustrate what they would do in the snow. This would be a cute piece to hang in the hallway!

Lexile Level: AD500L 

How to Catch a Leprechaun is a new book about a mischievous leprechaun! This book takes the reader down the road of mischief for the Leprechaun. The book would be so cute to do a read aloud with grades K-4th. There are so many activities and lessons that could go along with this book during the week of St. Patrick's Day. Since the book challenges children to make an invention to stop the Leprechaun, the students could be put into groups to make the invention.  Technology could be integrated into this lesson by having the older grades type out their invention, or they could write a narrate their own story about a leprechaun. This book could also be studied with sequencing. Overall, this is such a fun book! I recommend this book for all teachers.

Lexile Level: AD320L

The Pigeon Needs a Bath! is a fun and silly book about a sassy Pigeon who does not think he needs a bath! This would be a perfect read aloud for grades 1st-4th. There are many options for activities and lessons with this book. A teacher could of course do a lesson about keeping ourselves clean and healthy for Science, a timeline with Math, or a persuasive letter to Pigeon to take a bath for English!

Lexile Level: AD150L

How Much Can a Bare Bear Bear? is the perfect book to introduce homonyms and homophones to your class. Homonyms and homophones are easier to see than to explain, so this book is a great way to do that! This book will be a great read aloud for 3rd-5th grade. A cute and creative activity for students to do is to create and illustrate a homonym! These could get pretty silly and fun since it gives the students options to create their own!

Lexile Level: AD880L

The Mission of Addition is a great book about MATH! Yes, this book is all about addition. In the very beginning of the book, addition is defined. Addition is being modeled through rhyming in this book with many illustrations and examples. It is such a great book, especially for teachers to read aloud with 1st-2nd grade. Following the read aloud, students can practice their addition with real objects from the story! For example, the teacher can supply mini school buses or rings as their math manipulatives. A vocab lesson with addition, plus, and equal.

Lexile Level: 610L

The Rainbow Fish is one of my childhood favorites! This book would be a perfect read aloud to K-2nd grade. It is sure to catch the attention of our students with the fish's shimmery scales. This book is about a beautiful fish who learns that you must be nice and share with others for them to be your friend. This is such a great message to get across to our little ones at an early age! One activity to do with The Rainbow Fish could be to name other adjectives for the rainbow fish. The class could do this together on the board! There are also many art activities to do with this book as well. For example, painting or coloring a fish of their own would be cute to do! The teacher could also do a bulletin board and display the students' artwork.

Lexile Level: AD410L

Please, Mr. Panda teachers manners for our younger elementary students! Mr. Panda does not want to give anyone a doughnut unless they say "please" and "thank you." This book would be helpful to establish manners in a classroom. A fun little treat to do after this book is practice our manners to the teacher while he or she passes out mini doughnuts (if allowed). The teacher could teach cause and effect with manners or a sequencing lesson using pictures with Please, Mr. Panda. It would be a great read aloud for Kindergarten-1st grade.

Lexile Level: 50L

Stellaluna is the perfect book to read during the month of October for Halloween! One thing I like about this book is that it gives many details about bats and how they live. It introduces vocabulary words like echolocation and nocturnal. This would be a good book to read aloud with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. The teacher could do a KWL chart and introduce the new vocabulary before reading and add these words to the word wall. The students could make "bat hats" out of black construction paper to wear while the teacher reads the book aloud! The students could do a book study/animal study for bats! Another cute idea with Stellaluna is to give the students an outline of a bat for them to color however they'd like (this could serve as an extension of a lesson). We could hang them up on the ceiling to have a "bat cave."

Lexile Level: AD550L

Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes is such a perfect book to read aloud in the beginning of the school year! I would read it to my Kindergartners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders. This book has such a cute tune through the beginning to the end which makes it so fun! An activity for Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes could be to write what they are going to do in their school shoes! We could do this as a class (for the Kindergartners), in pairs (for 1st grade), or in groups (for 2nd grade)! We could also use this book for a lesson on rhyming words!

Lexile Level:AD600L 

If You Give A Moose A Muffin is such a cute book for a read aloud in K-2nd grade. One way to teach this is to teach cause and effects. The teacher could ask the students to think of other examples of cause and effect for text-to-self or text-to-world. The teacher could also bring muffins (depending on allergies!) for a little treat during or after reading!

Lexile Level: AD590L

Charlotte's Web is a fun chapter book for grades 3rd-4th. This book is perfect to begin discussing characters, themes, settings, and other literary elements for a chapter book. One way you could teach this lesson is by preparing it for a small group! Before reading, one way to have the students have a hands-on experience with this book is by having the vocabulary words written on a laminated index card for them to touch and review as we are going over the vocab in the story/that specific chapter. Another option is to pass out the index cards, review the vocabulary together, re-read the vocab words, and then instruct the students hold up the index card which matches the correct definition! After reading, the students could do a creative writing piece on what they think will happen next.

Lexile Level: 680L