16+ Book Lists for Morning Meeting Lessons
Planning for morning meetings? Picture book read alouds are an important part of my upper elementary morning meetings. Many teachers have reached out to ask where they can find lists of my recommended read alouds for morning meetings—so, I finally decided to put all of the lists in one blog post. I hope these are helpful for you as you plan for your morning meetings AND, don’t forget to grab some free teaching resources!
Note: Links to the suggested read alouds in this post are affiliate links. This means that I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Read my full disclosure here.
Each of these book lists are compiled and linked to my Amazon storefront (a handy way for me to create recommended book lists!). Keep in mind that once you open one of the book lists below, you can actually scroll the page and find other book lists you may be interested in.
BOOK LISTS FOR BUILDING COMMUNITY AND EMPATHY
Individualism (Amazon Book List)
This free theme unit is packed with lesson ideas, student journal pages, discussion prompts, self-reflections, bulletin board materials, and more! YES! Everything you see below for the belonging theme is FREE!
BOOK LISTS FOR RELATIONSHIP SKILLS
Resolving Conflict (Amazon Book List)
Compromise (Amazon Book List)
Friendship (Amazon Book List)
BOOK LISTS FOR MANAGING OUR MINDS, MOTIVATION, AND GOALS
Growth Mindset (Amazon Book List)
Perseverance (Amazon Book List)
Goal Setting (Amazon Book List)
Intrinsic Motivation (Amazon Book List)
BOOK LISTS FOR SELF-REGULATION AND SELF-AWARENESS
Responsibility (Amazon Book List)
Managing Emotions (Amazon Book List)
Happiness/Joy (Amazon Book List)
I’ve also been asked many times for a list of the main read alouds I recommend in the lesson plans of my morning meeting theme sets. Within each teacher guide, I’ve included key questions for at least one read aloud. This read aloud becomes the “mentor” or key read aloud for that morning meeting theme unit. I’ve put together a list of those recommended/key morning meeting read alouds here (along with some honorable mention books that are also key to some of the text to text connection lessons I mention in the unit plans). Finally, if you are looking to add more diversity to your classroom picture book collection, check out this list.
If you need digital resources, I’ve got you covered with Google Slides versions of each theme set. Grab your FREE slides for belonging here.
My morning meeting routine is based on themes in literature. My morning meeting model is a routine classroom experience that allows students the opportunity to develop personally, academically, and socially through the use of self-reflection, read alouds, songs, videos, quotations, key vocabulary, classroom discussions, and the teacher as a trusted guide.
Each element of the framework works to create a theme-study while at the same time teaching social emotional skills, character education, and strengthening the classroom community. The 5 phases of the framework include:
Exposure/Launching the Theme (without coming right out and telling students what the theme is)
Introducing the Theme, Self-Reflection, and Goal Setting
Student Discussion
Building the Theme
Consolidating Learning, Reflecting, and Creating Closure
Materials and resources for each of these components are included in each theme unit.
THEMES TO GUIDE YOUR MORNING MEETINGS ALL YEAR LONG
If you’d like more social emotional theme units with a focus on encouraging students’ social, emotional, and academic success, you may be interested in the Morning Meeting Mega Bundle of 17 theme units. With units focused on kindness, compassion, growth mindset, gratitude, perseverance, responsibility, managing emotions, and so much more, your engaging morning meeting plans are done for you and your students will love them! You can save 10% on the Mega Bundle of all 17 themes with the code MM10.
Book lists are meant to be constantly updated! Please share any good titles you’ve come across for any of the themes mentioned in the comments below so I can add them to the list.