Picture Books to Promote Classroom Community
At the beginning of each year, I always focus heavily on classroom community building in our classroom. This is a constant theme that we discuss and I promote through activities and books all year. Books are an amazing way to share stories of community with students and begin discussions about how your class can work together, support each other, and
This is a list of the book that I use most often with my students. I have used these in 2nd, 4th, and 5th grades to work on classroom community! I included a few links to activity ideas to accompany my favorite of the books! Click the title or picture of the book to see it on Amazon.
Books to Support Classroom Community Building:
I LOVE THIS BOOK! I have a whole blog post dedicated to how I use it in my classroom along with a HUGE reading and social emotional activity FREEBIE that can accompany the book. Check that out here!
This was one of my favorite books as a child and still is really high on my list! It is wonderful for talking about supporting each other and how that can relate to classroom community! I have a comprehension Google Slides resource that supports the book available here.
Ideas of questions to discuss with each book:
- What is community?
- What are good examples of a working community?
- What actions take away from the strength of the community?
- How do the people in the story treat each other?
- How could we see a situation like this in our classroom?
- Do you agree with the main character’s actions?
- Give an example of how the characters supported each other.
I believe that it is essential to cultivate a strong sense of community and belonging amongst your students in your classroom. Some other ways I do this are through teamwork activities and Morning Meeting!
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