Teacher Stuff: read alouds

Showing posts with label read alouds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label read alouds. Show all posts

Create Your Own Listening Library

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Did you know that you can easily create your own listening library to use in your classroom or in your school library? If your students have access to an iPad or google classroom, you can create a listening library in just a few steps! Here is what you will need:

1. Choose a book and a read aloud.

There are so many great read alouds out there that are already made! My favorite go-to places for free read alouds are Story Time With Ryan and Craig (they are hilarious!) and Storyline Online. Just copy the link to the video. You can always make your own read aloud too, or ask parent volunteers to create them at home. It's a great way for parents to help at school, even if they can't be there to volunteer in person. You can also have students create read alouds to share with other students! 

2. Make a Safe Link

Many of the read alouds you will find are published on Youtube. Unfortunately, Youtube is not a very kid-friendly place, and it's blocked in many schools. But there is a work-around if you have found a safe video to share! First create a free account with Safe Share (if you don't, your link will only last 1 hour. I found out the hard way! 😔)  Then click 'Add SafeView' and paste your Youtube link. This creates a new link for your video without the ads or commercials that pop up. You will have to check with your school technology or IT department to make sure your Safe Share links are not blocked. Click on the share button (it looks like a less than sign with 3 dots) and copy the new url. You can even share this link to your google classroom if you have older students and want to skip the QR code step. (If you're not using a YouTube link, you can skip this step and move to step 3.)


3. Create a QR Code

Go to QRStuff, choose website link, and paste the link you copied from Safe Share. It will create a QR code that you can download or take a screenshot. (No need to save on qr stuff once you have your QR code.) I use a google slides template with squares that are 3.5x3.5 with the title of my book on it. I add the QR code to my template (either insert picture after you have downloaded the QR code in the step above or take a screenshot of the QR code and slide it onto your template). Now print out the QR codes you made and cut out the 3.5x3.5 squares. Stick a self adhesive label holder on the inside cover of your book and slide your QR code in. Now students can scan the QR code in the book and listen to the read aloud. If you ever want to change the read aloud video, or if the link breaks, you can just slide the paper out of the label holder and add a new one. Now your classroom library or school library can also be a listening library!





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Teacher Stuff Newsletter #5: The STREAM Edition

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Here is the Teacher Stuff Newsletter #5: The STREAM Edition. You have probably heard of STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. You may have heard that you can incorporate Art to get STEAM. Well, when you also incorporate Reading, you have STREAM! What better way to incorporate a STEAM lesson than to base it on a picture book? Here are some easy ideas to get you started. If you click on the books it will take you to an affiliate link. This means if you buy the book using my link, I earn a small commission, but at no cost to you. But you can always check these books out at the library too!

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12 Days of Christmas (or December) in the Classroom

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Are you looking to add a little holiday magic to your classroom? Try wrapping 12 holiday or winter books for your class--they don't have to be brand new. Unwrap one book each day and read it aloud for 12 days of Christmas (or December). This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. That means I get a small commission if you use my links to buy something, but at no cost to you.

Add these tags to your wrapped books that say "Don't open until _________." Since we aren't at school every day in December due to weekends and winter break, you can plan when to start opening each book so that the last book is opened on the day before break. If you do elf on the shelf in your classroom, it can be a present from your elf! If you don't do elf on the shelf or you don't specify Christmas in your classroom, you can use the tags that are for 12 days of December with books to unwrap from your teacher. You can even ask parents to donate a wrapped read aloud book for the 12 days or Christmas or December so it's a surprise for you as well! You may want to include a sign up genius if you do it this way so you don't get the same book. You can even have the parent who donated the book to come read it to your class! There is a tag for all of these options included in the bundle below.


In my classroom, at the beginning of the year, I added a little fairy or elf door. Throughout the year, we have discovered that they are elves, like the elves from the book The Elves and the Shoemaker. Periodically our elves leave us notes and presents. They are cousins to the elves in the North Pole, so they have been gone for a little while helping their cousins during this busy time of year. But they have returned with 12 read alouds wrapped for the 12 days of Christmas!


Our elves are also friends with the Leprechauns who live in Ireland, and they bring them to our classroom for a visit in March. They play little tricks on us around St. Patrick's Day and we try to catch them! Read more about how I set this up in my classroom in the blog post 3 Back to School Books With Creative Gifts & Activities For The Beginning of the Year. If you didn't start with elves in your classroom at the beginning of the year, now is still a fun time to start! Your first book to open could be The Elves and the Shoemaker which can be a clue to who your new little friends are!
One of the parents in my classroom made this little house for the elves! The kids were SO excited! It is amazing! And we can change out the decor as different holidays come around!

Whoever you decide your wrapped read alouds are from, have fun sharing one with your class for 12 days of Christmas (or December). Here are some of my favorite books to use in this activity. If you are a teacher, you know that this time of year kids are C R A Z Y. Keeping their attention is a daily challenge. You need read alouds that are fun, meaningful, and not too long or you'll lose them. So while I love books like the Grinch and the Polar Express, because they are also movies, kids struggle to sit through these LONG read alouds at this time of year. That is just a teacher truth, so I stick to shorter stories. 

If you focus on the holidays, here are some of my favorites. The stories about specific holidays are a little longer, just FYI . . . 


How To Catch Santa
The Crayons' Christmas
Gingerbread Baby
Moostletoe
Olive the Other Reindeer
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Sleigh
Tough Cookie
Snowmen At Christmas
The Broken Ornament
Turkey Claus
The Night of Las Posadas
What is Christmas?
Hanukkah Bear
A World of Cookies For Santa

If you want to stick to winter books, these are some of my favorites.

I personally do a combo of both kind of books in my classroom. There are some great activities that you can do with many of these books as well. 
  • The Snow Globe Family by Jane O'Connor: This is a story about a family and a family that lives inside their snow globe that mirrors what happens in their family! Here is an activity from Ideas by Jivey called Reading in a Winter Wonderland: The Snowglobe Family . And here is an oldie but goodie-- If I Lived In A Snowglobe by Hope King. I think there are more out there! We also have our students make their own snow globe ornament for their parents as a present. With a picture of their face, they add a body doing something in the snow. Then we add snow or cotton balls. They turn out so cute and original each year!
  • Snowmen At Night by Caralyn Buehner: This is a fun story to read about what Snowmen must do when kids are not around at night. Jen Kimbrell has a fun literacy activity that includes coding with this book Fun Coding Activities For Kids that Teach Literacy Skills.
  • Our Table by Peter Reynolds: This beautiful book is a good reminder about spending time with family and not getting too caught up in technology. Use 'Our Table' Bingo as "homework" for your students over the holidays. It has opportunities for students to spend time together and share the pictures with you!


Do you have any other favorite read alouds for this time of year? Do you have activities to go with them? Leave them in the comments below!


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