A Back to School Read Aloud and FREEBIE!

If you are reading this post, you probably notice something wrong at the top of my blog!  Well….. I accidentally deleted my blog title… EEK!  It’s currently being worked on, but the posts still show just as well.  So sorry about the ugliness that it currently is, ha!

In the spring, Hope and I came across the sweetest little book.  Yoko opens up for great discussion about cultural awareness, accepting differences, and trying new things.  It’s the perfect addition to your back to school read alouds!  If your B2S plans are all filled up, no worries… it’s great to use throughout the year also!

One of the focuses of the book is trying new things.  The students can brainstorm different things they want to try in the new year.  Maybe they want to try to read chapter books, try the monkey bars, or make new friends.  As a class, you can brainstorm new activities for your class to try!  It’s all about putting our hesitations aside and living for the moment!

Students can also make this flipbook and generate their very own bucket list!

One of our favorite activities to go along with Yoko is making friendship sushi as a class.  Hope created poems to accompany each of the recipe steps.  Students work through the procedural process as they whip up Friendship Sushi!

We have two versions of Friendship Sushi that can be made with students.  They can also write out their “How To” steps in a sushi booklet!

You can find the activities above by clicking HERE.

Before you go, I have a FREEBIE for you!

Another activity that we paired with the book is a directed drawing of Yoko with a character traits lesson.  Students use textual evidence to decide if the character traits are describing Yoko in the beginning, middle, or end of the story.  Students color code the character traits and glue the adjectives all around their drawing.  They can also write about Yoko afterwards!  This is a great little introduction to how characters change throughout a story!  Click HERE to grab the directed drawing steps, character trait cards, and writing page!

If you are looking for more Back To School Activities, we’ve compiled TEN of our favorites!  We’ve got cooperative learning, STEM activities, get to know you games, all about me goodies, photo booth props, crafts, directed drawings, and character trait lessons.  Check it out below!