The books I share with my students for read aloud each year always create my most favorite memories. I love the feeling I get as I experience a book with a group of children. That’s why today I’m sharing my favorite chapter book read alouds.
Even if I have read the book by myself and or with other classes, the experience is always different. Students come up with profound ideas and help me see things in new ways.
They beg for more and they groan when it is time to move on to other things.
I’m going to keep this post short, but I’m sharing the chapter books I read aloud to my students this year and the main focus of our reading mini lessons for those books.
Note: Links to these chapter books 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.
CHAPTER BOOK READ ALOUDS
1ST QUARTER: WINGS BY BILL BRITTAIN
- MINI-LESSON FOCUS: before, during, after reading; walking in the character’s shoes/empathy; theme(s)
2ND QUARTER: THE TIGER RISING BY KATE DICAMILLO
- MINI-LESSON FOCUS: walking in the characters’ shoes/empathy; theme(s); identifying and paying attention to symbols to find more meaning in the story; characterization/character traits; looking at how people deal with trauma/death; comparing/contrasting two characters; bullying; fitting in
3RD QUARTER: MANIAC MAGEE BY JERRY SPINELLI
- MINI-LESSON FOCUS: being able to answer open-ended questions with text-based evidence; pre-writing with t-charts, venn diagrams, etc. before answering questions; Civil Rights/race relations; historical fiction
4TH QUARTER: HOKEY POKEY BY JERRY SPINELLI
- MINI-LESSON FOCUS: for the love of reading!!!
Hokey Pokey was really a read aloud to keep us reading at the end of the year. It is Jerry Spinelli’s newest book and I wanted to see how I liked it and share it with a group of kiddos. It is a coming of age story and was perfect for sending my 4th graders onto 5th grade. We did a LOT of fun activities with this book, and I hope to have time to share more about it with you. Think skits and classroom performances, illustrations, Hokey Pokey dancing, students reading aloud, and more!
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