The Summer Of Books

My goal this summer was simple: find as many books for my classroom as possible, for as cheap as possible. Then, find the best way to use those books in class… Preferably BEFORE there are 25 kindergarteners in my room, staring at me their with adorable kindie-kid eyes. (Those eyes are located right above the kindie-honest mouths, AKA motivation to be over-prepared.)

Why not libraries, you ask? I’ve tried them, I really have. I promise. But I’m terrible about re-using books. I will use one book several times a year. When teaching music to K-5, it’s a surprisingly easy thing to do. I will also shamefully admit I’m terrible about returning them in two weeks. I see my classes once a week, and two class periods just isn’t going to be enough if I decide to base a grade’s program on a book. I also happen to really like my school’s librarian, and would prefer not to make her angry with my bad library habits. Plus, buying them now means I can avoid borrowing in the future, so buying books seemed like the best option for me.

Amazon is an amazing place, don’t get me wrong. But I have found that even with no shipping thanks to Prime, the cost of new books adds up quick. So, my first stop was the thrift stores. ALL OF THEM. I went to every thrift store in my city and positively plundered the children’s book sections. I got a lot of dirty looks from moms, and I’m certain a few people thought I was crazy, but a .99 cent book is a powerful incentive. I found books of every kind, and quite a few of them were ones I had never heard of before.

I spent some of my summer mentoring new music teachers in my district, and here is one question I got a lot: What do you look for in a book, and how do you know it will work in your classroom? While digging through piles and piles of categorized books that seemed to be a mix of out-dated Disney characters, books teaching toddlers to say “please” or use the bathroom, and absolutely perfect books for my music classroom, I looked for three main things:

1. Reading Level. Even when using a book with an intermediate grade, I keep to a K-2 reading level. Narration in higher-leveled books can get LONG. I like to have the kids making as much music as possible, and primary books deliver.
2. Repeated structures and refrains. Another great thing about primary level books is they tend to have a lot of repetition. A repeated phrase in the book is an easy opportunity to add a sung refrain, or a chant.
3. Onomatopoeia. Sound effects are huge in my state’s curriculum for K-1, and even for older kids they are very easy to transfer to instruments.

Did I find anything? HECK YES I DID. Eric Carle books, folk tales, short poetry books, you name it. Some of the very specific books I wanted (thanks to Pinterest) weren’t to be found, so I did make a pretty gigantic order to Amazon. But it wasn’t nearly as big as it could have been!

I will be going into more detail about what I do with each book soon. I hope you find a book that makes you do the happy dance!

Here are just a few books recently added to my classroom library!