December is always an exciting time of the school year for elementary students. There are often different celebrations throughout the month and fun themed activities. Not to mention, winter break!
While winter break is an exciting time for teachers as well, the many celebrations throughout the month can sometimes make lesson planning difficult. However, as a teacher you know that it is important to maintain your learning routines amidst the festivities.
One way to maintain learning and still enjoy the joy of the season is through read alouds. Let’s dive a bit deeper into why December read alouds for elementary students is a great idea.
December Read Aloud Books
Before we share our four favorite read aloud books for December let’s take a peek at why read alouds are the perfect learning routine to maintain through the holiday season.
As an elementary school teacher you know that reading is an integral part of your students’ experience. This is why you have probably been teaching a book during reading time since back to school. Therefore, your students are already familiar with a reading routine.
Since your students are already familiar with a reading routine it is easy to use that routine to maintain order and learning – even amidst the excitement of holiday assemblies and sending letters to Santa. Moreover, with our ready to teach lesson plans and flexible learning activities it is easier than ever to adjust any read aloud to fit within a modified schedule.
We will share our flexible reading schedule later on, but first – let’s look at our favorite December read aloud books!
Olive the Other Reindeer Read Aloud
It’s likely that your students know Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but do they know Olive? If not, then Olive the Other Reindeer written by Vivian Walsh and illustrated by J. Otto Seibold is an excellent book to read during December!
The story revolves around Olive, a dog who mishears a line from the classic Christmas song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. When Olive hears the lyric “All of the other reindeer,” she thinks it says “OLIVE” and from then on is convinced it’s her job to help guide Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve.
Eager to help Santa, Olive sets off to the North Pole and joins Santa’s team of reindeer – even though at first she seems a bit out of place. Through Olive’s adventures, young readers learn the importance of self-confidence and the idea that everyone has something special to contribute, even if they’re a little different from what’s expected.
Tough Cookie Book Companion
Tough Cookie by Edward Hemingway is a delightful and creative twist on the classic Gingerbread Man story. In this book though, it’s a sugar cookie that gets chased and unfortunately gets caught.
However, while Sugar Cookie gets caught by Fox in this new tale – the outcome is not as expected. Your students will probably be just as surprised as the characters in the book when they find out that Sugar Cookie is NOT sweet!
After the kids recover from the shocking news that this special cookie is quite different than the sweet sugar cookies they may make for the holidays, they will enjoy following the rest of Sugar Cookie’s journey. Moreover, you will enjoy the lessons that your students can learn from this book – like celebrating and accepting each other for who they are.
Pig the Elf Read Aloud
Pig the Elf is a children’s book written and illustrated by Aaron Blabey. The story features Pig, a mischievous and self-centered pug, who takes on the role of Santa’s helper during Christmas.
If you are familiar with any of the Pig the Pug books, you know that our favorite little pug has a tendency to be a bit greedy. Pig’s greed shows up once again in this book, along with some other behaviors that almost get him put on Santa’s naughty list.
Although Pig’s greed and naughty behavior lead to comical and disastrous consequences, he learns important lessons along with way. More importantly, your kids will learn these lessons along with Pig – such as the importance of generosity, selflessness, and the true meaning of Christmas.
Hanukkah Bear Book Companion
Hanukkah Bear is a wonderful children’s book by Eric Kimmel. It teaches young readers about the celebration of Hanukkah.
Readers get to learn about this important holiday through the experiences of two characters – Bear and Bubba Brayna. Bubba Brayna is an elderly woman who thinks that Bear is her Rabbi that has come to celebrate Hanukkah with her.
Whether your students are familiar with Hanukkah or this is their first experience learning about it, they will enjoy getting to know about the Festival of Lights through Bear and Bubba Brayna’s experience.
December Reading Comprehension
While each of these books is delightful to read on its own, we know your goal as a teacher is to continue to keep kids engaged in learning up until winter break officially begins. Therefore, we have created complete read alouds for each of these books.
These read alouds will help students engage with various literacy skills and continue to develop and demonstrate their reading comprehension skills throughout December. Let’s take a look at how they will do this.
As mentioned earlier, all of our read alouds can be used over the course of a week or adjusted to meet the needs of your schedule. The first three days of each read aloud has a lesson plan to cover reading comprehension through various activities. Beyond these three days, there are additional activities that can be completed on a fourth (and even a fifth) day.
The additional activities provided are a great way to extend any lesson on a week that allows for it. However, if you have a busy schedule filled with school activities and shortened class time, you can simply focus on the primary activities in days one through three.
And, those are just a couple ideas of how these lessons can be flexible! Within each lesson you can adjust even further. On really short days you may modify how many questions you use, while on a longer day you might add the additional writing activity.
December Books for Preschool
One of the things that we love about each of these books is that they are wonderful for ALL ages! That’s why we created December read alouds for preschoolers as well.
Just like our December read alouds for first and second graders, these read alouds provide similar reading comprehension activities. However, they are aligned to meet the learning needs of younger readers.
As with our December book bundle above, we have also combined all of these delightful December books into one reading bundle for preschoolers. Moreover, we added a read aloud for TWO extra books!
In the Prek bundle, you will find the four books above PLUS a read aloud for the books The Ninjabread Man by C.J. Leigh and The Gingerbread Man by Gail Yerril. This extra read aloud has students explore these two holiday books through several compare and contrast assignments.
Even though the month of December can be quite busy as a teacher, you deserve to enjoy the festivities just as much as the students though! Therefore, we hope you will find these read aloud bundles as a way to save you time planning and providing you more time to enjoy the season with your students.
