Mary Wore Her Red Dress, Red Dress, Red Dress

When I was student teaching I worked with a lady who I think had been a Kindergarten teacher for about a million years and she was still fabulous at it. At the start of the year she began with a theme on colors. Although most of her kids had mastered colors several years ago she always liked to start with something they felt confident with and activities to learn each other’s names. One of these activities was developed around the book Mary Wore Her Red Dress.

In the story Mary Wore Her Red Dress, animals are heading to a birthday party. The book begins in black and white and as characters are introduced it is around their clothing and its color. So as Mary enters on the first page with her red dress all the other images on the page that are red start to appear and so it continues through the end of the book when finally all the colors are revealed. There is a song that goes with the book as well and you can usually purchase the book with an accompanying tape or CD.

After reading the book, the class would make their own big book to mirror the story. Ahead of time, we had cut out items of clothing (shirts, dresses, shorts, pants) in a variety of colors. Each child would then pick one piece of clothing and take it back to their seat. They would glue the clothing to a large piece of paper and then draw the rest of their body around the clothing. (This took a little modeling before they started, but they actually do a great job.)

Then at the bottom of the piece of paper we would write a sentence like in the text, such as “Peter wore his yellow shirt.” When all the pages were done, we would laminate them and make them into a class big book. The next day we would read our class big book together and “sing” the book like we did with Mary Wore Her Red Dress.

The kids love this big book and it was a class favorite they returned to over and over again to read in the library. Not only did it help some friends who may be shaky with colors, but more importantly it was another fun way to learn everyone’s name at the start of the year.

Anno’s Counting Book

One of my favorite changes recently in math adoption programs is the addition of quality literacy materials. In my district’s current math adoption, each teacher received a series of math texts to be used as read alouds and a big book. I love that publishers are starting to understand content area integration and providing support and materials to facilitate that process. 

Starting in the early 2000’s, when I first starting using the math adoption Investigations, I will admit it took me a while to really understand how to implement it in the classroom. I was used to very traditional math programs and Investigations definitely is not traditional. One of my favorite parts of the series were the trade books and the activities that aligned with them. Classic texts like Mouse Count added a fun twist on traditional math instruction. In Kindergarten, one of the most fundamental pieces of the curriculum is numeracy and helping children develop a deep understanding of numbers and number concept that will help them as they move onto more complicated topics in the future.

In Anno’s Counting Book, the story develops as through each page more images are added, but always in sets equal to the number for the page. For example “Page 0” is completely blank. Then, on “Page 1” there is one house, one sun, one tree, etc. I used this book a ton throughout the year and finally went on Amazon and bought the big book. Last time I check it was around $16.00, which, as big books go, is pretty decent.

In the Investigations series, after reading Anno’s Counting Book, the students make their own counting book named after themselves. They have pages similar to Anno’s, and as they move through the book they complete it in the same way. So for example, on “Page 2” the student mike draw two chairs, two pencils, two students, two dogs, etc. The point is that they are not just making on representation of the number, but really understanding the number as a set.

As an adult, I think back on my own math instruction as a child and remember how I easily picked up addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, but I really was just memorizing facts. One of the best gifts we can give kids early is a deep understanding of numbers and I love finding books that can help me do that.

The Kissing Hand

While in Virginia I had the privilege of working with an amazing team of Kindergarten teachers. They had Kindergarten down to a science and it was a great place to learn while not having to get lost in planning and coming up with new ideas all the time. They really were a PLC before ‘Professional Learning Communities’ were in style.

At the start of the year, the very first book they read was The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. The Kissing Hand is a story about Chester Raccoon who is getting ready to go to school for the first time – and is really unsure about this idea. His mom tells him about all the fun things he will do, but then shares a special secret with him that will keep him warm and cozy at school.

The secret is the Kissing Hand, which is a special kiss from Chester’s mom onto the palm of his hand. Whenever Chester is lonely, he can press his hand to his cheek for a kiss from his mom and remember that he is loved. It is a wonderful book for the first day of school and after reading the book we all make “Kissing Hands” to take home from school for our families. 

Since it was the first day of school, my assistant and I would trace the shapes onto the felt and paper so the students only had to cut them out. Felt can be a little tricky, but with the Fiskar scissors it usually went pretty well. It was always nice to have something to take home at the end of the first day and a story to share. I will say I usually waited until the mid-afternoon for this project since it gave any friends who might be having a hard time on the first day of school a chance to calm down and realize school was fun before hearing the story.

Since The Kissing Hand I believe Audrey Penn has written two sequels that include stories about Chester’s brother called A Pocket Full of Kisses and A Kiss Goodbye.   

Time for Bed

I like many of Mem Fox's books, but my favorite story is Time For Bed. Mem wrote this book in the early 1990s, but I didn't stumble upon it until a few years ago. In Time For Bed, different animal moms and dads send their babies off to bed with a couplet, such as:

     Time for bed, little mouse, little mouse,
     Darkness is falling all over the house.

It even has a soft, sweet tone to the poem that makes it perfect for a "good night" read. After I bought this book I struggled with where to use it in my class. Of course there is always time for a good read aloud, but since there are so many fabulous children's book out there (and more appearing each day), I like to at least have some common themes in my read alouds during different units or parts of the year.

I finally decided to include this book as part of my Valentine's Day theme. I have several other books, such as Guess How Much I Love You, that I read as part of this unit when we talk about the love families have for each other. It seems to fit nicely there and gives us a chance to talk about how we can tell the animal families in the book love each other. A great companion text is Goodnight Moon where we compare our bedtime routines and how we get ready for bed each night.

I keep this book in my "special" section. Most of the time I let my kids get their hands on the books I use for read aloud, even though 99% of the time they are too hard, just because I think that is an important experience. However, I do keep a special section of books on a shelf that if I ever have kids will be coming home with me because I love them that much - this book made the cut!

Read Alouds for the End of the Year

There are a ton of great books to celebrate the end of the school year. Two of my favorites are The Night Before Summer Vacation and Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten.

The Night Before Summer Vacation is a spin-off on the classic poem, The Night Before Christmas. In this story a girl and her family are preparing for a fabulous summer vacation. Of course, as with any big summer vacation there are always things that can go wrong! One of the best parts of reading this book is the rhythm, rhyme, and meter that allows you to use a cloze format to complete each couplet. After reading the book, students can share their own summer plans and compare their stories with what happened to the little girl in the book.

The Miss Bindergarten series offers Kindergarten teachers the opportunity to read about important points in a Kindergarten year: the start of the year, Miss Bindergarten being out sick, taking a class field trip, the 100^th day of school, and, of course – the wild day in Kindergarten! The final book for the year is Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten. Just like Miss B brought in the year, we celebrate with Emily, Danny, and Franny as the fabulous class closes out the year with balloons, hugs, cards, and gifts.

The read aloud and book discussion is one of the quintessential pieces of Kindergarten – and there is no better way to finish out the year.