First Week of School Read Alouds Your Classroom Needs

Choosing your first week of school read alouds is such an important part of back to school planning! If you’re like me, you want to find back to school read alouds that focus on building classroom community and setting expectations of kindness and inclusion. These types of books are so important for setting the tone for your students as they begin a new school year!

I have pulled together a list of some of my all-time favorite first week of school read alouds for starting off the year on the right foot, all organized by category. Some of these are brand new to me, and I am so excited to add them to my read aloud library this year!

First Week Of School Read Alouds

When you’re choosing your first week of school read alouds, there are a few things to look for. If you want to choose read alouds to build classroom community, it can be helpful to look specifically for books that do one of the following:

• Help students feel welcome in their new classroom
• Build relationship between teacher and student
• Emphasize kindness and empathy
• Celebrate learning and help get students excited for school
• Teach rules and routines

First Day Of School Read Alouds

These first week of school children’s books are a wonderful, clear statement that my classroom is a place where we love and support each other, and that everyone is a welcome part of this community.

Our Class Needs You is a wonderful back to school book that talks about how there is a place for every student in the classroom – whatever their talents or interests may be! It emphasizes that each student is not only welcome, but needed for the class to be complete.

A Tiger Tail is a fun book for the first day of school because it talks about feeling nervous on the first day of school, and how it’s normal for everyone!

Our Class Is a Family is another great back to school book for creating classroom community. This book emphasizes that your class becomes your family during the school year, and that school is place where everyone is appreciated and safe.

All Are Welcome is the perfect first week of school read aloud for emphasizing inclusivity and celebrating diversity.

Read Alouds To Celebrate Names

Celebrating student names is always on my list for the first week of school activities! I love this set of first week of school read alouds because they normalize all types of names, and they focus on celebrating the beauty of every name.

The Name Jar is a classic book for helping students appreciate and embrace their own names.

Alma And How She Got Her Name is a sweet back to school read aloud that celebrates a name that is meaningful to Alma and her family.

Your Name Is A Song celebrates the beauty of various names. This is a wonderful first week of school read aloud, especially if you have students with names that are harder for you to pronounce.

Diversity and Inclusion

These first week of school books are helpful to talk about all the wonderful ways that we are all different from one another, and how our classroom will be a place to celebrate these differences. I use these books to start conversations about how we should be proud of all the parts that make us who we are, even if some of them are different from our classmates. We talk about how there is no “normal”, and how it’s okay to talk about how we are different from others in a way that isn’t hurtful. These books create wonderful opportunities for students to proudly talk about things they love about themselves.

Kindness And Justice

In my classroom, we always talk a lot the first month about how to treat each other. We set expectations, we do role playing, we create word lists, and we revisit them all the time. These books help my students understand on a deeper level the importance of treating each other with kindness, and the importance of speaking out when you see something wrong.

Classroom Behavior

And of course we also talk about classroom rules and behavior expectations. These books help to start conversations about what kinds of behaviors we need in order to learn. And reading these books together as a group helps us all feel united in our commitment to upholding our classroom rules.

Which first week of school read aloud are you excited to try this year?
xoxo
Laura