Must Read Monday: Holiday Books

Happy Monday everyone! I know many of you have headed back to school or today is your first official day back, and I wish you an incredible start to the new school year! I have a few more weeks of summer left, and I hope to make the most of it!

It's Monday, and that means I am linking up with Kindergarten Planet and The Kindergarten Connection for my favorite linky, Must Read Monday. This link up is almost over, WAAAHHHH!!!! I'm really going to miss this link up!!

In case you didn't know, Must Read Monday is a weekly link up where we get to share our favorite children's literature books based on a given topic.

This week's topic is Holiday Books! One of the things I love most about children't literature is that there is a book for every situation and every holiday/special occasion out there! I have chosen a book from several of the main holidays we celebrate in kindergarten!

Let's start in January, with the holiday of New Year's. This story, Squirrel's New Year's Resolution, is a great story to try and help little minds grasp the concept of a resolution.

Squirrel knows that he needs to make a New Year's Resolution, but the trouble is he doesn't really know what a resolution is. He wanders through his forest home, coming upon animal friends who have already made their resolutions, witch they share with Squirrel.

You are really going to like the ending, where you find out what Squirrel's resolution is!

This is a great lead-in to a lesson on having students make their own New Year's Resolutions.

Moving on to February, let's take a look at a favorite Valentine's book, Love, Splat. Most kindergarten teachers and their students are familiar with Splat and have a fond relationship with him!

Our lovable black cat finds himself making a special Valentine's card for someone very special to him, Kitten. however, Spike also likes Kitten and doesn't want to share. This story shows the lengths Splat is willing to go to make Kitten his Valentine.

This story is a great lead-in for a Valentine writing craftivity, or as a discussion about being able to have more than one best friend.

Next comes March and St. Patrick's Day, my very favorite holiday!

This is a book we read every single year in March. That's What Leprechauns Do is a story that chronicles the journey of some leprechauns racing to get to the end of the rainbow before anyone else. along they way they stop and complete some tricks on the people who live around them. For instance, they convince a hen to lay on a tennis ball as if it were an egg. This behavior continues all the way to the end of the rainbow.

This is one of my very favorite books, and we always read this book before that sneaky leprechaun comes to our classroom and does all sorts of naughty things. Plus, this is a great book to practice cause and effect. You can talk about what mischief the leprechauns make on their journey and how that effects those around them. It's also a good one for retell!

After March comes April, and the holiday of Easter. The Easter Bunny's Assistant is a hilarious story about the Easter Bunny and his new assistant.

The Easter Bunny's assistant is incredibly excited that it is Easter and all he wants to do is help. However, when the assistant gets too excited, he makes quite a big stink! It's fun to watch the two characters interact.

This story uses bright, bold illustrations and simple text. It also uses many speech bubbles, which is a great way to introduce the concept to your kiddos!

Also in the month of April usually falls Earth Day. Earth Day is a big deal at our school, and we usually celebrate it as an entire school, planting flowers and cleaning up trash.

This is a great story to introduce the concept and importance of Earth Day. Little Critter takes us through Earth Day and how he helps take care of the Earth. Students can learn the importance of cleaning up trash, recycling, and working together to make the Earth a better place.

This book is great to explain Earth Day to your kiddos, and on each page there is something important to stop and discuss.

In October we get to celebrate the holiday of Halloween. The 13 Nights of Halloween is a spoof off of The 12 Days of Christmas.

This counting story takes us through a Halloween night and introduces us to all sorts of Halloween creatures.

This is a fun book to help practice counting as well as to compare to The 12 Days of Christmas. There are many parts to this story that crack me up every year!!

This might be my favorite holiday book of all time. Perfect for Thanksgiving, Turkey Trouble tells the tale of a turkey who is desperate to keep himself off of the dinner menu.

Turkey creates all sorts of disguises to try and trick the farmer into not eating him for Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey almost runs out of time before he finds the perfect disguise!

We read this story right before we introduce a take-home project where they must find a way to disguise a turkey so the farmer doesn't eat him for dinner!! I love to see how creative they get with disguising their turkeys.

Finally, I'm going to share a Christmas favorite with you all! Who Will Guide My Sleigh Tonight? is the hilarious tale of Santa trying out different animals pulling his sleigh.

Each animal has a certain characteristic or two that make them not quite suitable for pulling Santa's sleigh, and the illustrations really take the cake in helping to tell the story. The details in the illustrations are incredible, and every time I read this book I notice something new.

This is a great book to use with predicting which animals Santa will try out, and there is some great verb practice in here as we describe how each animal moves when it pulls the sled. Kiddos are going to LOVE this book, especially since they will get a peek at Santa's underwear, and what kindergartener doesn't crack up at the mere mention of underwear??

I thank you for reading through all of my choices, I know there were a lot this week! I hope you were able to learn about a new book or two! Make sure to go back to the link up and see what other holiday books made the cut!

Don't forget that IT'S NOT TOO LATE to link up for Spotlight Saturday! This link up is a Teacher's Show and Tell to share our favorite products, activities, resources, tips, tricks, and ideas with each other. It's all about #2getherwearebetter and gives you a chance to shout out a favorite seller!