Creating Our Classroom Enviornment with Books

Summer has ended and for most of us, school has started.  All of our summer planning, relaxation, professional development ideas, and bloggy-inspiration are put to the test.  How are we going to create the classroom environment that we want?  How do we make the kids respect each other and all their differences?  How do I make them listen, trust me, respect me, and want to learn in my class this year?
Books.

Lucky us, there are so many great authors and illustrators that have created some amazing books to help us create the environment that we want.  Books that help us to illustrate good listening and respect for others.  I (Em from Curious Firsties) wanted to highlight a few of these books today.  You will have so many more to add to this list.  Please comment below and let us know what other books we can add to our "back to school toolbox."

Respecting Yourself and Others:



All of these books help our students to understand the importance of being yourself and being different from each other.  I always try to emphasize how boring our classroom would be if we were all the same.  And that I would never want to be in a classroom like that.

For "The Crayon Box That Talked" I ask the students to draw me a picture using all the different colors.  When they open the box of crayons that I hand them, they see that all the crayons are the same color.  They start shouting that they cannot make a picture with just one color.


But I make them do it anyway!  Then they get to color a picture with a regular box of crayons.  We discuss the importance of having many colors in our world, just like we need lots of differences in our classroom.

"Cat The Cat Who Is That?" may seem like an odd book to have on my list.  It is a very simple book.  But I read it right along with "I Like Me."  I want the students to think about why they like themselves.


 After they complete a self portrait, I ask them to mirror the language from "Cat The Cat."  They write "I am _________ the ________." (It is also a great book to begin introducing speech bubbles during that first week.)

"Arthur's Nose," "I'm The Best," and "Chrysanthemum" are all stories that do a great job of illustrating a character that does not feel comfortable with what sets them apart from others.  But as the book progresses, they learn to accept themselves and their differences.  What an important skill to hit over and over and over again.

Building Teamwork:

Teamwork....SO important.  I like to work on this skill throughout the whole year because I really believe that it is a life skill that our students need to survive in any job/career that they enter.  Here are a few books that can be used to help reinforce this skill:

I think all of these books help to set the tone for teamwork in a classroom environment, but it is the activities and discussions that you plan and implement with your students that make the most difference.  One example comes with "Rainbow Fish."  Teamwork is not the focus of this book.  It is more about sharing; however, I use it to teach teamwork by putting the kids into groups and asking them to make a fish together.  Once they work together to complete this task, they receive their "sparkle" fin.


This year I will use "Swimmy" to work on teamwork during our first full week of school.  My entire group of first graders will use their individual fish to create one large fish in the hallway!  I love this visual to help them understand the impact that teamwork can have.

Being a Good Listener:

I know that there are some really good books out there to help introduce good listening skills in the classroom but I want to focus on just one right now.

My firsties think this book is so funny!  They crack up as I read it because Rapunzel does not listen to the prince and throws many silly things out of her tower.  This book has some great vocabulary, includes rhyming, but really serves the purpose I need it to: listening.  Rapunzel is a terrible listener.  Once we complete the book, we discuss what a whole body listener would look like and we label those parts on a person.  The book is so engaging and funny that I can refer back to it and remind them to be a whole body listener.


What books do you use to create the classroom environment that you want?






3 comments

  1. The book One Green Apple by Eve Bunting is a beautiful book that I use at the beginning of the year as we begin to explore learning differences and languages spoken at home. It deals with how it feels to be a new student AND a young person learning in a second language.
    One Lucky Teacher

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much!! I will have to check this one out. I love building up my "back to school" toolbox. It makes each year exciting.

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  2. I love Patricia Polacco, and I share Thank You Mr. Falker, Bully, and Junkyard Wonders with my students in 4/5. They need to hear her stories to understand that they can become anything they like with hard work and a positive attitude and more hard work.

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