#ClassroomBookADay Recommendations: A Kindness Booklist

May 2022
It’s that time of year: We are so close to the end of the school year, everyone is getting antsy, and little things can build into big things. There seems to be more and more tattling happening with the younger kids and pushing back happening with the older ones. As we begin wrapping up another school year, I’m thinking about what messages are the most indelible to leave my students with as they head off to summer and a new classroom or school after that. What messages will work for right now as we get through the last few weeks of the school year and be ones they’ll remember long beyond that? With that much time left, I still have 15-20 #ClassroomBookADay titles I can share! One of the most important themes I see as part of social-emotional learning needs right now is kindness. Not the toxic positivity or “just be kind to solve systemic issues” type of messages that can be problematic, but messages that show kids the small and big moves they can make to be more empathetic humans and show consideration to classmates, school community, family, friends, strangers, and themselves. A little bit of kindness might be just what we need at the end of what has felt like the longest school year ever in the current societal climate. And there are always books for that! I hope these titles remind you of old favorites, introduce new books, and help you share the message you want to with your students with your read alouds through the end of this school year.

Follett Classroom has partnered with me to spread the #ClassroomBookADay message. As part of that, my themed picture book recommendation lists are housed in Titlewave, one of my favorite free databases for looking up all things related to book information! Don’t have your free account? Grab it today.

Thank you for joining me for another year of this journey! With this last post for this third year of our partnership, you now have 540(!!) picture books in 27 themed booklists that I have thoughtfully curated to support your daily #ClassroomBookADay read alouds. I’d love to hear what some of your favorites have been, what themes have been helpful, and what you’d like to see next!