Bring the Christmas fun into your read aloud times with these favorite Christmas books for kindergarten. These books for Christmas are the perfect fit for both fun and teaching standards-based content.
Let's dig into the best Christmas books for kindergarten.
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Christmas Books for Kindergarten
If you read the Bear books series to your class, then you've got to add Bear Stays Up for Christmas to your list. While bears normally hibernate during the winter - bear's friends help bear stay up so he won't miss Christmas day.
I'm a big fan of using different versions. When I stumbled upon A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas I knew it needed to land itself in my 12 Days of Christmas line up. It is the perfect standards based connection to creating our own class version of the traditional Christmas song. (We turn it into a book that I like to gave as a Christmas gift to each kinder.)
I like using There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell as a way to talk about predictions. By December, we've read a few other Lucille Colandro 'Old Lady' books and have made the connection to look for the common thread that pulls all of the items in the book together. They like to figure out the ending.
New to me this year, but recommended by my awesome readers on facebook is Santa's Book of Names. It's a sweet story about learning to read.
I'm a huge Gingerbread Man fanatic. I love capitalizing on the magic of Christmas and we bring gingerbread cookies to life the two weeks before Christmas break. We use an anchor version of The Gingerbread Man and compare so many versions - it's a blast. Here are my top Gingerbread Man different versions:
If you want to lead your class on a reading and writing adventure too, I've got you covered with all of the details in this Gingerbread Adventures unit. I'll walk you through every step - you're gonna LOVE it!
A classic like The Polar Express should definitely make the list... if you plan a special Polar Express day complete with pajamas and hot chocolate. We did this on the day that we captured our gingerbread cookies and the pj's made for the best photos.
The Wild Christmas Reindeer is longer read aloud but is a beautifully illustrated story. If you've read other Jan Brett stories, it's a great one to compare using the side bar illustrations.
Non-fiction Christmas Books for Kindergarten
Do you like to incorporate non-fiction into your instruction before Christmas? Two themes come to mind that are an easy fit.
Here is a list of reindeer non fiction books for kids. These are ideal for kindergarten!
Explore Christmas in other countries right from the classroom. These are neat ideas for read alouds but may not be a perfect fit for every kindergarten class - some are a better fit for first and second grade.
I hope this list of Christmas books for kindergarten is helpful if you're looking for something new to read this year or just need to save time when you hit up the library with your must-read list in hand.
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Leslie is the teacher behind KindergartenWorks. She believes in teaching kinders how to be pretty incredible along with teaching them to read, write and think for themselves. She enjoys drinking hot tea, making mud pies with her three kids and sharing what she's learned with teachers.
