It’s no secret that I love a good picture book for reading aloud or to accompany my current topic of study, even in upper elementary! In this post, I’ll share 12 of my favorite picture books and related literacy activities for each month so you’ll have a list of literacy read-alouds and activities guaranteed to engage and inspire all year long!

Monthly Literacy Read-Alouds and Activities

Each of these book and activity combinations will help you meet your standards with picture books and related reading projects to use each month. I included Amazon affiliate links for each one to make shopping easier.

January

Even if you don’t live in a snowy climate, Ten Ways to Hear Snow will have your students feel like they’re living the BEST snow day. You can use this book companion that has EVERYTHING you need to implement 5 days of mindfulness lessons related to the book!

Pair it with this Winter Games Reading Project to learn about many fascinating winter sports! This winter sports resource is a great way for students to practice nonfiction reading skills and strategies while learning about popular and interesting winter sports played around the world. They’ll read articles, passages, books, encyclopedia entries, and more to answer questions about each sport. Finally, students will choose one fun activity from the choice board to complete and share about the excitement of winter sports!

January is also the perfect time to discuss the winter solstice, which you read about in this January activities post!

February

Caveboy Crush is the PERFECT Valentine read aloud. Filled with charm and humor, Caveboy Crush explores the universal emotions of love and friendship in a playful and imaginative way, making it a fun read.

Then continue the Valentine’s theme with these Valentine’s Day Logic Puzzles that help students solve a fun reading mystery. They’ll help your students increase their logical reasoning in a way that’s so much fun and perfect for the holiday! There are a total of SEVEN logic puzzles for students to solve. One logic puzzle is meant for practice. FOUR puzzles help students solve a high-interest reading mystery, and TWO puzzles stand alone.

March

The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read is an inspiring true story that’s perfect for National Reading Month. Readers are introduced to Mary Walker, who at 116 years old, decided to pursue her lifelong dream of learning how to read. Born into slavery and denied an education during her youth, Mary’s determination to become literate serves as a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of lifelong learning. 

Then help your students practice their own reading skills with these Differentiated March Reading Skills Task Cards that cover main idea, context clues, sequencing, inference, and more. Each card has a fun March theme and addresses important events in US history, doubling the educational value! 

April

Welcome Spring and Earth Day with The Boy Who Grew a Forest: The True Story of Jadav Payeng, which is about a young boy living on Majuli Island in India, who witnesses the devastating effects of deforestation on his homeland. Motivated to make a difference, Jadav embarks on a mission to restore the lush greenery of his environment by planting trees. 

Then celebrate Earth Day with this engaging Earth Day reading project that covers a wide variety of reading skills. Students will explore topics relating to Earth Day as they collect ‘badges’ to place on their printable Earth Day sash. Students will learn about The History of Earth Day, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Composting, Pollution, Trash and Litter, and Renewable Energy. Most pages in this project are designed to stand alone so you can take what you need, and save what you don’t!

May

Read What the Road Said in May as you send students on their way to the next grade level. This picture book serves as a metaphor for life’s journey. This book not only sparks conversations about making choices, both right and wrong, but also instills a sense of hope and optimism, reminding readers that every step taken, no matter how daunting, contributes to personal growth and transformation. It’s the perfect way to circle back to the importance of growth mindset!

Then use this Travel Themed Context Clues Project to continue the journey. As students travel from country to country, they’ll complete a wide variety of context clues tasks and earn “travel tokens” to fill their postcards and complete their trip. You can have your students complete this as a whole class, in small groups, or as a fun at-home project.

June

Ten Beautiful Things is a heartwarming picture book that follows the journey of a young girl named Lily as she moves to a new home with her grandmother. Faced with the daunting task of adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings, Lily finds comfort in her grandmother’s wise advice to seek out ten beautiful things in her new environment. It offers a fabulous extension opportunity to encourage students to write their own list of ten beautiful things they see out the window.

Keep the summer theme going with Summer Using Pictures to Teach, which is perfect to review reading skills at the end of the year! With these 8 printable pages, students will have the opportunity to observe a picture and make inferences, ask questions, make predictions, etc., practice a reading skill based on the picture, and apply the reading skill to a short passage. 

July

Celebrate time outdoors with A Different Pond, which transports students into the narrative of a young Vietnamese boy who goes fishing with his father in the early morning hours before his father heads off to work. Through the boy’s eyes, readers witness the quiet moments shared between father and son as they bond over the ritual of fishing—a tradition that connects them to their cultural heritage and provides sustenance for their family. 

Then practice fluency with these Summer Fluency Task Cards that have varied sentence types to help your students practice their oral reading fluency! These engaging task cards are perfect small group, whole group, or independent center fluency activities.

August

Build your classroom community with Our World is a Family. This book celebrates the diversity and interconnectedness of cultures around the globe while taking readers on a journey across continents, showcasing the traditions, languages, and customs that make each culture unique.

These back to school reading lessons are also perfect for August!

Then use Back to School Reader’s Theatre to practice fluency and comprehension. It includes 8 back to school plays with a variety of student roles included to allow for smaller groups to maximize reading time and fluency practice, more collaboration with smaller group sizes, differentiation options, and ensure that everyone has a valuable part in the play. It also includes comprehension skills for both readers and listeners!

September

You can continue to set the tone for the academic year with this book! A Thousand Nos follows the journey of Lila, a young girl with a passion for art and creativity. When faced with rejection and criticism from those around her, Lila discovers the power of resilience and perseverance as she learns to turn rejection into motivation.  You can use this book companion that has EVERYTHING you need to implement 5 days of grit and perseverance lessons related to the book!

Then continue to explore growth mindset with this Growth Mindset Journal. This journal introduces students to the concept of growth mindset, including brain research, how to cultivate a growth mindset, and what the differences are between a fixed and a growth mindset. After students have been introduced to the concept of growth mindset, they read 10 inspiring stories in the form of five paired passages (one fiction and one nonfiction on each of the five pages) about people who faced challenges and overcame obstacles with a growth mindset.

October

Looking for a Halloween-inspired read aloud without actually mentioning Halloween? Beatrice Likes the Dark follows the adventures of a young girl named Beatrice who discovers the beauty and magic of the night. Drawn to the darkness, Beatrice explores the nighttime world with curiosity and wonder, encountering nocturnal animals, mysterious shadows, and twinkling stars along the way.

Then use these Halloween Inference Centers to turn your students into detectives tasked with solving a Halloween mystery to discover who is dressed in 6 Halloween costumes, and where each student lives.

The Gustavo’s World books (Amazon affiliate link) are the perfect foundation for several Halloween literacy lessons, which you can read about in this post! 

November

Celebrate Thanksgiving and fall with The Very Last Leaf about a determined young leaf named Leif who refuses to fall from his tree, despite the changing seasons, and despite excelling at everything else he has ever done. Through courage and friendship, he discovers the beauty of letting go of perfectionism and making way for new beginnings. You can use this book companion that has EVERYTHING you need to implement 5 days of facing fears lessons related to the book!

It’s also the perfect time to practice topic and theme with these fall books.

Then use these Fall Context Clues Activities as a literacy center or break them up into several engaging lessons throughout the month!

December

Looking for a story that captures themes of love, resilience, and the magic of the holiday season? Red and Lulu is a story about a pair of cardinals who live in a beautiful evergreen tree. However, their home is cut down and transported to New York City to be the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Red and Lulu are separated during the journey, but their love and determination lead them back together.

Visit this post for free Rockefeller Christmas tree literacy activities, related Rockefeller picture books (Amazon affiliate link), and differentiated, detailed informational text passages to practice synthesizing sources and exploring perspectives. 

Explore Holidays’ Around the World Literacy with this paired text resource. Students will embark on a journey around the globe by way of pen pals! As the pen pals write to each other detailing their celebrations, students learn about the beautiful traditions and holidays celebrated around the world in an incredibly fun and engaging way.

More Annual Literacy Resources

If this list has inspired you to plan a read aloud and related activity each month, you’ll also love these other annual literacy resources!

Reading Skill of the Day

Reading Skill of the Day contains a full 40 weeks of daily reading skill review. It is just what you need for a consistent spiral review of reading skills throughout the year! This valuable resource contains a full year’s worth of reading skill review, plus extra weeks for homework, test prep, and more.

It will help you engage your students in a daily review of 17 key reading skills for:

• Main Idea (Every Monday)
• Inference (Every Wednesday)
• Cause & Effect
• Author’s Purpose
• Compare & Contrast
• Fact & Opinion
• Context Clues
• Sequencing
• Fluency
• Character Traits
• Key Details
• Story Elements
• Point of View
• Restating the Question
• Text Features
• Text Structure
• Theme

Pair them with these Reading Skill Quick Checks as the perfect companion piece! They follow the same scope and sequence and are perfect for assessing understanding at the end of each week.

Literacy Skill of the Week

Literacy Skill of the Week is the ULTIMATE yearlong spiral review resource to build literacy skills in a way that’s FUN for students and EASY to prep! This is a monthly resource to teach and review essential reading, writing, and grammar skills in fourth and fifth grades. 

It includes 12 months of original, high-interest reading passages with a heavy focus on a specific skill each week. Each month, two texts are fiction, and two are informational. It’s perfect for:

• Weekly instruction or practice
• Weekly homework
• Center work
• Morning work
• Intervention
• Test Prep
• Spiral Review

Poem of the Week

Help your students read and comprehend poetry with 40 original poems designed to practice poetry and fluency skills in Poem of the Week. Each poem is accompanied by thoughtful tasks to help students focus on their oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. You can: 

• Give the poem to your students on Monday and take 2-5 minutes each day to practice reading it out loud for fluency practice.
• Use as a whole class poetry comprehension activity or lesson
• Use to extend learning
• Perfect as a literacy center
• Differentiated poetry comprehension practice

More Book Lists

Looking for even more book recommendations with literacy read-alouds and activities? Visit these posts for more of my favorite titles, including recommendations for chapter books too!