Fall Reading List

Read last year's fall reading list here.  Looking back at that list there are a few books we ended up buying and are still favorites of Carter.  Of course I melt a little bit seeing the pictures because he was soooo tiny!  I remember taking the picture of him holding a book on his own for the first time and being so excited.  Now it's not unusual to walk into a room to find him sitting in a chair flipping through a book all by himself!  Sometimes he's even repeating the words that go along with the story due to continuous readings of the same books!  With our weekly learning themes we spent much of the fall reading books within the chosen theme.  I would get on the library website and request books I wanted on the topic the week before our theme began.  I was a little bummed we weren't finding as many of the stand out amazing books like we had before so I made sure to also pick up a few books unrelated to the theme each week.  It's neat that the books listed have switched from my favorite books to the books that Carter liked the most.  But of course I have to add my side notes and teaching ideas the books brought up!

Reading while I was cleaning.

Sometimes I even try to read to him only to have him tell me no because he wants to read to himself!

Our Top Reading Choices From This Fall:

• All Aboard! by Mary Lyn Ray, I picked this book up during our traveling weekly learning theme.  Carter absolutely loved it and would hand it back to me each time I closed the back cover when we finished reading it.  We read it so many times!  I loved that the book had lots of rhythm and sound words in it.  It would be a great book to read to a class when discussing how to add details to a story.  There were some sections of the book that I felt like I was singing to Carter because they had such nice rhythm.  I made sure to copy this book down so we could read it again during train week.
• Little Bear's Little Boat by Eve Bunting, This was another book Carter wanted to immediately read over and over again.  It was a very cute book and I loved the message it conveyed.  It would be a great book to read to a child when they are outgrowing their clothes and you are giving them away or to a younger sibling or when they are too big for a toy.  It could start the conversation and you could relay how they are like the bear in the story.  
• Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin by Tad Hills, Carter loved reading this book and requested it often!  On each page one of the characters would ask if their pumpkin was in a certain place and the other would respond with "no".  Carter started responding to the questions with "no" while I was reading.  It was so cute!  I love books that can be interactive like the Pigeon books and Pete the Cat.  Carter loves to answer questions posed by the books, especially if the answer is no!
• I'm Fast! by Kate and Jim McMullan, When Carter spotted this book in our library bag he instantly reached for it and wanted to read it.  We read it 4 times in a row the first time we read it.  I loved it for the same reasons I loved All Aboard!, the sound words and rhythm to it.  Carter loved that the main characters were a train and a car!
• Row, Row, Row Your Boat by Jane Cabrera, This book was so cute and a fun change up to the song "Row, Row, Row Your Boat".  Carter loved it and we read it so many times!  He loved making the animal noises on each page and he also enjoyed that I sang the words.  He loves books that I sing to him! 
• Bears on Chairs by Shirley Parenteau, This book was so adorable Ty even mentioned how much he liked it.  It's rare for him to tell me he liked one of Carter's library books.  There are so many teaching points with this book: friendship, sharing, problem solving, colors, even and odd, addition, counting.  It's the kind of book I am always looking for, one that can be read over and over to teach multiple different lessons.  Those are the best mentor texts!   
• Walk the Dog: A Parade of Pooches from A to Z by Bob Barner, Carter loved this book so much that by the evening of the day we checked it out I was starting to get tired of reading it.  He would immediately flip back to the front upon finishing the book so we could read it again.  It was a very cute book though.  I think he enjoyed the repetition and all the different kinds of dogs.  I added the book to a list for when we do a weekly learning theme on the alphabet.
• Guess Who? by La Coccinella, This was another one Carter loved so much I started to get tired of it.  I think he loved that the mouths of each animal were cut out of the page so he could grab the page there to turn it.  He also liked saying the animal's name and making it's noise on each page.  It was a cute book and it was so much fun to listen to him make the noises!
• Whose Hat Is That? by Anita Bijsterbosch, I couldn't tell you how many times we read this book.  Carter loved it so much!  It was pretty cute and he loved that I would use different voices to read what each of the animals said.  It would be a great book for beginning readers as there is a lot of repetition and predictable animal noises.
• Sheila Rae's Peppermint Stick by Kevin Henkes, I'm mentioned before that Kevin Henkes is one of my favorite children's book authors.  His books have great messages and the mice he typically uses to illustrate them are adorable.  Plus, the way he writes includes so many great techniques to teach in an author as mentor study.  Surprisingly I had never read this gem before.  Mostly because it is a board book and I don't typically use board books in my classroom.  When I saw it in the board book section at the library I instantly grabbed it.  Carter loved it and asked for it multiple times.  It also had a great message about sharing which is timely for him as he will soon be a big brother!  It would be a great book to give to an older sibling when sending presents to a newborn.