Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the read aloud classroom podcast. I’m so excited to be diving into episode two today. I want to share with you. Places where you can get books to use as your read aloud. A question that I get so often is I don’t know where to find the books. So today let’s chat about that. First, I want to start with a story.
I remember when I got my first teaching job, I was teaching second grade and I was so excited. I really was like, this is the perfect age to use, read alouds in the classroom. I’m going to go to Barnes and noble. I’m going to get so many books. I’m going to stock my shelves. I go to Barnes and noble, I start picking up a few and I decided to look at the price tag on the books. 18 99, 21 99, 24 99. Started doing the math and realize that I could very easily spend over a hundred dollars and only have four books in my hand. Yeah, I didn’t have the budget for that. I’m guessing that you don’t either. So today I want to talk about places where we can get the picture books for our read alouds without breaking the bank. And I have a couple of different places to share with you.
First, I want to start with a free place that you can get picture books. Your local library. I love to go to the library, however, I don’t always have the time. So I want to share a tip with you today. So hold on a second for them. But I highly recommend starting with your local library because you can get books for free and. Decide if they are what you need for your lesson, for your classroom.
And if it is one that you really want,
then you can decide to get it for your classroom and actually pay for the book, but definitely start with the library first, because that’s where you can test out the books and decide whether they are going to meet your needs or not. So one tip that I recommend is many libraries offer this service where you can go online and you can request books. The beauty of this is you pick all the books that you want. And they put them on hold for you.
So when you walk into the library, you give them your library card and they just hand you the pile of five, 10, or however many books you requested. You don’t need to spend a half hour an hour looking at all the books on the shelf, although sometimes you might want to do that. I definitely enjoy browsing the aisles at my local library, but when you’re short on time, that’s a great way to get those books and have them ready to go.
And it’s easy. Like I said, you can go online, you can request all the books and then just walk into your library when they’re ready to pick them up.
But other reasons you might want to go to the library is you can chat with the librarian. They are such a wealth of knowledge and can help you find the books that you want. They can help you come up with different titles to address the things that you might be teaching in your classroom. Oftentimes you can borrow these books for at least three weeks. I know my library.
, they don’t even charge you a fine if it’s overdue anymore. Something happened after COVID and you can keep the book for a very long time. Eventually you have to give it back, but. You can definitely keep it for quite a while.
Oftentimes, when you walk into your local library, they also have displays based on upcoming holidays or events that have lots of books available for you to use.
So for example, last year, when we had the solar eclipse, my library had a whole table on display of books that were connected to that topic. So you can go in and see different things that will relate to what you’re teaching in the classroom. Sometimes it might be a holiday like Valentine’s day and they have easy ones that you can grab. Right away. The local library is such a powerful tool in finding picture books for your classroom that I highly recommend starting there, or even your school library. And borrowing the books first before deciding whether you do want to add them to your classroom collection.
Now speaking of libraries, many libraries also have library book sales, where oftentimes they’re looking to. Get rid of some of the extra books that they have on their shelves. Oftentimes people will donate books and you can go to these library books, sales I’ve gotten. Picture books for 25 cents that are still in really good condition. So you can go and stock up on books. Spend five or $6 and get 20 bucks.
And you do have to dig through a little bit and you can’t necessarily go in looking for specific books, but you can go to these library, book sales, dig through the ones they have available and choose which ones you think your students will like, which ones will match with the lessons that you’re teaching in the classroom.
Now going along with different types of sales, there’s lots of places where you can get used books.
You can check to see if you have any local used bookstores in the area around you. Sometimes it’s even worth it to drive a little bit further to find one, because oftentimes you’ll find books. Probably a little bit more expensive than the library book sales, but you can find books for three, $4 again. A lot cheaper than that.
Visit to Barnes and noble. Other places you can find used books, our yard sales garage sales. , coming up in the spring time, you’ll see lots of yard sales popped up.
And usually you’ll find books at yard sales at art, pretty good condition because it’s just one family that has used these books. And you’ll get pretty good deals with them. You can even, , offer them different prices and they’ll kind of work with you to give you a good price for the book.
A lot of times I’ll let someone know that I am a classroom teacher and they just want to share these books. They want to get them out of their house because they don’t use them anymore, but they want to be able to share them with others and they get excited to share them with classroom teachers, knowing that these books will be read by many, many students.
You can also visit local thrift stores.
A lot of them will receive book donations and they will have them for again, that cheaper price. Oftentimes they do a deal. Buy two, get one free. And again, the books are on that cheaper N two to $3. Much lower than an actual bookstore. And if you are on, , Facebook, there’s a lot of buy nothing groups that you can find, which I know the one that’s local to me is very active. And similar to a yard sale there’s families that are just trying to clean out their house and they have lots of books that their children have grown out of and are looking for a new home for those books. And again, they often want to donate to a classroom where they know a lot of kids will have access to that book.
Another way that you can get books for your classroom to use as read alouds, especially if you’re just wanting to use it for one lesson and may not necessarily need to add it to your library. Is to check with your colleagues. See if any of the other teachers on your grade level, or even , in your school? Have the book that you’re looking for, maybe you need one specific title to teach a science lesson, check with them.
I know someone that I used to work with would send out. She would start with her grade level and she would send out an email to all the teachers on her grade level saying, I’m looking for this book. Can I borrow it on Thursday? If no one in our grade level had it, she would send an email to the school, checking with them and saying, I just need it for this one lesson.
I’ll give it back to you when I’m finished. That’s a quick and easy way to get a read aloud book without having to purchase it without having to leave the building and go to the library. But being able to use it and share it with your students. So definitely use the colleagues you have around you. To look for books that you can use in the classroom.
One way that I used to get brand new books for the classroom is I would use these Scholastic book orders and students would order books through Scholastic book orders.
And as they ordered more books, I would get points to use for purchasing my own books. And I know that you can also get stuff for the classroom, like you could purchase like markers and other things, but I always used it for books and I kind of kept a running record of books that. I thought I might need or ones that I thought my students would be interested in.
I would even ask them to add to the list. What books do you want to see in the classroom?
So that way, when I went to put in my Scholastic book order, I had a whole list. And I would often use my points to get those books for free. Also Scholastic tends to do book deals where they do. I believe it’s two, a $2 book of the week, or if you buy certain ones, you get a percentage off on others.
So that’s another great way to.
To build your collection without spending a lot of money.
You could also use a program like donors choose where you request materials like books for your classroom. And families and companies can donate towards the project that you were looking for. So maybe you need a collection of books for science. They can donate money towards that. And then you can purchase those books that you need for the classroom, with the donations that were given to you without having to spend money from your own pocket.
So those were quite a few at different ways that you can add to your read aloud collection in your classroom.
And I know there’s lots of other ones, and I’d love for you to share with me some ways that you have gotten books for your classroom. Head over to Instagram and send me a DM at the colorful apple and let me know ways that you get books for your classroom without breaking the bank. Because remember you don’t have to spend a ton of money to build an amazing classroom library. By being strategic about where you look for books and building connections in your community, you can really create a rich collection of read aloud. That will engage your students and create meaningful lessons in the classroom.
Now as you know, I am ending each one of our podcast episode with books of the week. This week, our topic is winter books. So I have five different book titles to share with you to go along with the theme of winter. Then I think you could use it in the classroom. I know when I had the YouTube channel. I would love to recommend books on different topics.
And I knew that I wanted to carry that over onto the podcast. So I’m going to end each one of our episodes with Booklist for a different theme each week. Like I said this week is winter books because looking out my window, we have a lot of snow on the ground and it’s very cold. The first book that I have to recommend is sneezy the snowman by Maureen Wright in this book, sneezy, the snowman is so cold and he really wants to warm up. So he tries drinking hot cocoa and sitting in a hot tub. But as your students might predict, predict he is going to melt. This is a fun, silly book for winter, but it’s also great for teaching about the states of matter because sneezy, the snowman starts as a snowman.
He melts into a puddle. And even evaporates when he sits in the hot tub. But don’t worry. Sneezy. The snowman is okay in the end.
The next book I have is a non-fiction book. This one is the story of snow by mark casino. It is a book about different snow crystals. It talks about how they are formed, what they look like. And it includes some beautiful up-close pictures of snowflakes, which your students will really find interesting because. Oftentimes, we just see the snow as big clumps on the ground. But being able to see those individual flakes will really engage them.
Next is one of my favorite winter books.
So this one is owl moon by Jane Yolan. This book is full of amazing descriptive language, and it just pulls you right into the story. In this book, a father and daughter go outlying it’s in the middle of the night and it’s cold and there’s snow on the ground. And they’re looking for owls. But as you go through the book, she talks about this snow crunching under their feet. And how the cold is nipping at their cheeks.
And it just really engages all of your senses in this one book.
Next is. Fun book. This one is snowmen at night by Carolyn Buner. There are I believe, five books in the snowman series and it’s such an imaginative book. About what snowman do after the humans go to sleep, what they do at night, because oftentimes we leave our snowman out in the yard and the next morning he looks almost exactly the same. Maybe a little bit melted. But this talks about all the creative things that snow men might do at night when we are sleeping. I believe there are different holiday ones.
I think there’s a Christmas one, maybe a Halloween one. , but a great series to read in the winter time. The last one that I have is another nonfiction book. This one is over and under the snow by Kate Messner. It’s a book about animal behavior during the winter. Um, that talks about how we see their footprints in the snow.
And it reveals the tunnels and caves that are created under the snow and what the animals do when the weather gets cold and food becomes more scarce. So those are my five books to celebrate winter time. And to celebrate the relaunch of this podcast, I’m doing giveaway. Two winners will receive a $25 gift card to Amazon to enter.
All you have to do is screenshot your favorite episode and the screenshot to your Instagram stories. And tag me at the colorful apple. I will be announcing a winner on Valentine’s day, February 14th. Thank you so much for tuning in to the second episode of the real loud classroom podcast. I’m so excited to get this up and off the ground and be able to share so many tips and strategies with you for using a read aloud in the classroom. Have a great week.
