Wow! When I published my last post nearly a week ago, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated exactly where we’d be today. Who knows where we will be at this time next week.

Over the past week, I have watched as our teaching community has come together to share resources with one another in hopes of helping get them started on this new distance learning journey. It has been truly amazing!

One thing that I’ve seen come out over and over again is to just let the kids read. Make sure the kids are reading at home, being read to, being read with. Although I firmly believe they should still practice some other skills during this time, I am also a firm believer in the power of picture books as a teaching skill.

Using Picture Books to Support At-Home Learning

I’ve had a blog post drafted for FIVE YEARS titled “10 Ideas for Using Picture Books With Big Kids.”

It occurred to me that now would be the perfect time to adapt that and make it a printable for parents to use as a guide for reading picture books at home with their children.

Before I go any further, I want to preface this with the idea that picture books should be read once through FOR PLEASURE AND ENJOYMENT before taking on any of these discussion ideas. We want students to grow a love of books! To immerse themselves in the story and build their own thoughts about the story before we start questioning them or trying to teach them something based on the story. However, after they’ve read and digested the books, they can become POWERFUL learning tools that anyone can use!

So, I’ve compiled this list of eleven suggestions for parents to use after they’ve read a picture book with their children. Included is also a handy cheat sheet. These are easy to implement, fun for students, and, straightforward for parents.

Please feel free to save it to your drive and upload it for parents to use as a resource. You can access and save the file HERE.

Extra Resources

If you are continuing to look for more distance learning and digital resources, I have converted many FREE and paid resources in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Here are a few snippets of information of my digital updates:

• Digital Reading & Math Projects: I have finished converting ALL of my reading projects and all but two of my math projects to digital formats. They are included with the original files. So if you’ve already purchased them, you can download them at no additional cost. Click HERE for reading projects and HERE for math projects.
• Free at-home learning: If you haven’t already visited my most recent post, you’ll want to! It includes a wide variety of free resources to help you during this transition. Click HERE for access.
• Digital Resources: You can see all of my digital resources HERE, including so much engaging reading review, advanced reading task cards, and more to help you plan for the next several weeks. I will continue to add more digital updates so that you can use the same resources you know and love.

Keep on keeping on! You’ve got this.