Back to School Read Aloud Books

I'm just exhaused after finishing up my classroom! I've been running around doing last minute errands before teachers report Tuesday and students report on Wednesday, plus playing kickball and softball... and I am so excited to start the year at my new school! I have met so many great, enthusiastic teachers on staff at our huge school, and they all pronounce my name correctly - I pronounce Alysia Battista as "Uh-lee-shuh Buh-tee-stuh" - which can confuse people when they see it in print. Our school is grades 3-5 with the K-2 and autism buildings just steps away, so I have tons of names to memorize. My grade level has 10 classes, while 4th and 5th have 8 each. There are 11 elementary schools, 4 middle schools, and 2 high schools. What can I say, NJ may be small but there sure are a lot of people here! 

Anyway, I wanted to post my first two weeks of Read Aloud books. I feel that I haven't done enough in the past, so I'm going to see how one a day works, and then transition into chapter books once our routine is down. It's very easy to find plans that go along with them, but I don't have time to post links to them right now.  My students have very unique names like me, so I am really interested in their response to Chrysanthemum. I am going to use these books to introduce reading response in their journals, plus making predictions, making inferences, and making connections. Character education and self-esteem building is embeded in How Full is Your Bucket?, Chrysanthemum, I'm Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem, Don't Squeal Unless it's a Big Deal, and The Principal's New Clothes (one of my favorites as a kid!)