Picture books are one of my favorite things. I love a fun story with great illustrations and I use them in my classroom a lot. Kindergarten, especially, is a great age to use picture books in your art lessons. I usually use a picture book to start the lesson off. As a hook to get them interested in what we are learning about. To get them excited to see what it next. Sometimes, I gather students on the carpet and I read to them in person. This can be fun since you can play with the inflection of your voice, make yourself sound like different characters, and ask your students questions along the way to make it interactive. Sometimes, I search YouTube for a book I know and I find a version I like to share with my students. This can help me get materials prepared while they watch the video, it can save your voice, and sometimes those videos have fun animations and other storytelling elements to them that the kids will love! 

Here are my top favorite picture books I use with my kindergarten students in the order I use them throughout the year. 

1. The Dot by Peter Reynolds
   • I start the year off with kindergarten with this book. The story is short and specifically about art, and it has a great message I like to send to my students. “Just make a mark and see where it takes you.” Vashti doesn’t think she can draw until her teacher frames her “dot” on the wall. She then believes she can do better and continues to make all kinds of dots in different ways and different colors. I read this book or they watch the video and then they get to make their own dot however they want. It also allows me to see what abilities they have on day one.

2. The Straight Line Wonder by Mem Fox
   • This book is how I introduce lines to my kindergarteners. I actually heard of this book when I was a student teacher at the end of college when my cooperating teacher used it and I have been using it ever since! It’s a book about a straight line who has two friends who are also straight. However, the first straight line doesn’t want to be straight anymore. It starts to be bumpy and twirly, makes loops and zigzags and then it becomes a famous line. The Straight Line Wonder! After reading this book for my students and having them make the lines in the air with their fingers as I read, we make the same lines on paper with crayons. Then the next day we watercolor over the lines to make a resist. Now we have learned our lines and can go on to do lots and lots of projects with lines! 

3. Robot, Zombie, Frankenstein by Annette Dauphin Simon
   • This book is a fun book to do around Halloween if you celebrate that, however, it doesn’t say anything about Halloween. It’s about two robots that try to outdo each other with their costumes or disguises. It highlights the shapes and the kids have a lot of fun seeing what each robot is going to do next. I do a paper shape collage with my students after reading it. They cut and glue their own shapes, starting with one large one for the body. Then they can draw more details at the end. 

4. Mouse Paint by Ellen Walsh
   • An art room classic, Mouse Paint is great for teaching the primary and secondary colors to kindergarteners! If you search online, I’m sure you can find sooo many different ways to do projects based on this book. I’ve done it a few different ways but it always involves the students mixing their own paints to make the secondary colors out of the primary colors. It’s like magic to them that they can create the colors on their own! So much fun. 

5. The Shape of My Heart by Mark Sperring
   •  This is a book I started using when I wanted to do a project with a heart and needed something to get it started. I read the book which is a sweet story about all these shapes of things in everyday life and it ends with a heart made up of all those wonderful things. Sometimes I use this book for a project where we outline a large heart in the middle and lines radiating out front it with thick black lines and color the rest. I’ve also done a project where we draw the things we love inside of a heart. If you have any kind of heart project in mind, this is a good book to pair with it. 

6. If the Dinosaurs Came Back by Bernard Most
   • Kids love dinosaurs. Period. This is a great book for anything you want to do with your students dinosaur related. The book imagines what ways dinosaurs would be helpful if they came back. Maybe we would ride them to work instead of a bus, have them get books off the top shelf, or even climb them like mountains. I love how in this book the background is black and white line drawings and the dinosaurs are bright colors to stand out. I usually do a project where students create a 3D paper dinosaur and I have done different things fo the background before. But so many ideas come to mind after reading this book, get creative!

7. My Dream Playground by Katie M. Becker
   • I have done this book with the same project for years. I love it! It’s a fun book and true story about how a girl plans and sketches her dream playground and then gets the opportunity to help build it in her neighborhood. After reading this book, I show students pictures of real playgrounds and we see all different shapes, colors, fun ideas, etc. One class period can be filled with drawing their own dream playgrounds. Another class period can be filled with creating a paper sculpture using colorful paper strips. I show them how to fold, twist, and loop the paper strips and glue them onto a base. It is so much fun to see what they come up with. Sometimes they even make roller coasters out of the strips instead of playgrounds, that’s okay and I love it! Maybe I need to find a book about roller coasters next!

8. I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont
   • This is another book I have been using since I was a student teacher. It is perfect for self portraits! All about loving yourself just the way you are. With kindergarten, I usually do self portraits close to the end of the year. They can focus more at this point and have grown up so much over the course of the school year. I show them step by step how to draw a portrait and they use mirrors. They do such a great job with details and it’s a great end of the year project to take home!

Picture books can be a great way to introduce a certain topic or get started with a project. It is so engaging for kids to read them a story, especially kindergarteners. I use picture books with all grades, kindergarten through 5th, but I hope you enjoyed this list of some of my favorites that I used with kindergarten!

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Keep blending,

Laura