 Hi everyone, my name is Steph. This is Little Bookish Teacher and welcome or welcome back to my channel. Back to School is just around the corner here in Australia, so today I thought I would share with you some of my favourite Back to School picture books. The majority of these are Australian ones, so they are perfect for using in Australian schools. However, they do have a bit of a universal appeal and I do also have a few other books thrown in here as well. I do have most of these in a physical copy. If I don't, I'll pop a picture on the screen for you and I will leave everything linked down below if you would like to check them out. So first of all we have Starting School by Jane Godwin and illustrated by Anna Walker, which is a dynamite combination of an author and an illustrator. This is a beautiful detailed look at the daily school routine and it covers everything from getting ready in the morning to being at school, to the different things that happen during the school day and then going home at the end of the day as well and celebrating the successes that we have experienced at school. In this story we follow five different children as they have their very first day of school and they each experience it in a different way, which is amazing and because they come from all different backgrounds and all different personal experiences that influences the way that the day goes for them. A couple of things about this book, it is quite a long book so it may not necessarily be a book that if you're reading it in the classroom that you read from start to finish, particularly if you're reading it with foundation students who are starting school or prep students or kinder students depending on where you are in Australia, their attention span may not sustain the length of this book, but that said you could definitely break it up into chunks over the course of a week and spend time unpacking it and discussing their own personal experiences about it. Alternatively if you're a parent reading this one you have bedtime routines and you can come back to it time and time again as well. It's a really great reflection book and the very last page does invite the readers to reflect on their own experiences of their first days of school so it's a really great jumping off point for discussion. As always Jane Godwin's writing is just top tier, she is an incredible writer who has a great way with words so it's beautiful for building vocabulary and Anna Walker just has the most beautiful illustrative style. The next one is a classic and was actually published the year that I was born and or first published the year I was born and that is Possum Goes to School by Melanie Carter and Nicola Orham. Despite the fact that it is nearly four decades old it is a gorgeous gorgeous story. It is about a possum who ends up getting into the school grounds and causes all sorts of chaos. The beautiful thing about this though is as the possum moves through the school it introduces different places within the school so for young students who are just experiencing school for the first time this is a great way to talk about the different spaces within a school environment from the classroom to the art room to what is the staff room and why did the teachers eat their lunch there. The playground and the sports shed and all of those sorts of things which are very common in Australian schools. Plus it's just hilarious because the kids love the possum and the chaos that the possum causes and of course the teachers are just sitting there going oh no and it's great like it's really really entertaining. The next book I don't have a physical copy of but it is First Day by Andrew Dotto. Again a first day of school story for someone who is starting school for the very first time. Similarly to starting school it goes through the daily routine of getting ready in the morning having breakfast getting dressed and getting to school and the goodbye routine with the grown-up especially since it's such a strange thing to say goodbye to your parents in the morning because you're in a brand new scary space but it's just beautiful as this little girl and her mum have this really joyful experience of the first day of school so it's got that very reassuring nature to it. I think this book is as much for the parents and carers as it is for the kids because it does show that even though it's sad you can be brave as a grown-up as you let your children go to school but also for kids that it's okay and at the end of the day you're going to have a great time and you're going to see your parents again at the end of the day and all is good. The language in it is simple and gentle and to the point and it makes a really good quick read because it's not text heavy. Also by Andrew Datto is old friends new friends which this one works particularly well for grade one students who have experienced a first year of school but are starting the second year and finding that things are not quite the same as they were at the end of last year and I know as a foundation teacher I wish I'd had this book at the end of 2022 when I was talking to my students about what grade one starting grade one looks like because this one is about when you go into your new classroom and you're expecting to see all of your old friends in the classroom and you don't have all of your old friends in the classroom you have to make new friends and that is probably the scariest thing after the first day of school is the first day of the second year when you don't really know what to expect. The main character in this story has come to school she's expecting to see all of her old friends in her classroom and she doesn't and it gets her really really down for the first part of the day until she remembers the discussions she's had with grown-ups in her life and she starts thinking okay well I need a new friend who can help me with this and I need a new friend who can help me with this and she starts getting to know the other kids in the class and realizing that that's okay she can have new friends and still also have her old friends as well so it's that beautiful conversation. This can work really well for the very first year of school as well particularly if a child is going to a school where they have kids from their kingdom but maybe not necessarily in their classroom but also perfect for grade ones. There is also the wild guide to starting school by Laura and Philip Bunting and I couldn't find my physical copy of this one but I really wanted to talk about it because it's absolutely gorgeous. Similarly to starting school this one is quite text-heavy and there's a lot going on in the story so it's not a one sitting read but it is a really good one to break up over time. This one is all about starting school and instead of having human characters though all the characters are animals very similar to their other books that they have worked on together very similar art style. It's very Philip Bunting in that way which is awesome but it does go through the starting school routine. The morning, what actually happens at school, what sort of things do you do when you're at school. This one also has some things that you should do and some things that you shouldn't do which is also a really great discussion point and as a teacher I have used this one and pulled out one page and we've just unpacked that one single page that relates to whatever conversation that we're having during our startup program. There is also going to big school and this one is by Laura Seve King and illustrated by Danielle McDonald. This is about Ava and Jack who are both starting school. They've never met each other but they become fast friends on the first day of school as they get to know one another. They both experience the day differently. Jack is quite nervous Ava is just a ball of excitement through the whole day. They find that they enjoy doing things together and that they include each other when the other person is feeling a little bit shy. I love that we have two different perspectives in this story and that they're contrasting perspectives of the experience. I also really appreciated in this story that at a drop-off and pick up you have different people dropping them off and picking them up. It also has a discussion in here about kids who go to aftercare. So in this story we have parents who do pick up the kids and drop them off but there's also babysitters who pick up the kids at the end of the school day and it opens up that discussion of okay well just because some kids have their grown-ups pick them up some kids go to aftercare and some kids have babysitters or grandparents or whoever coming to collect them at the end of the day and I think that's a really important discussion to have. This seems like a really minor thing but something that I really appreciate because we do have school uniforms here in Australia for the most part. Ava is not in a school dress she is in shorts and a t-shirt and I think that's really important because in most public or government schools over here the kids do have a choice of which part of the school uniform they wear especially at my school. So the girls do have a choice between dress with shorts or skirts or whatever they feel like and I like that in this book she is not wearing a dress because the thing that I have noticed about some of these others that tends to be the pattern but she's not in this and I just thought that was a really cool little feature. I also just love the really bright bold and colorful illustrations they're just absolutely eye catching. Another one I read was First Day by Margaret Wilde. I'd not actually seen this one but I found an e-book copy of it so I was able to read it for the first time for myself. This is another text heavy one so again something you'd probably break up over time but it is a beautiful story about a number of children who are starting school and who do go through the motions of the school day and who experience things in different way and have to learn to make friends and figure out their new school environment. So it was lovely. Margaret Wilde is a very very well-known beloved children's author here and I'm really annoyed that I didn't realize that she had a First Day of School book because it was great. There is also Maddie's First Day. This is by Penny Matthews and illustrated by Liz Annelli. This is a really really gorgeous picked book as well. Again it's Maddie's First Day of School. As in all of the other books she gets ready in the morning she does all the usual things about getting her school uniform on, putting on her school shoes but it does also include the fact that she brings along something special to her true school to help her be brave because she is nervous about her first day and I like the inclusion of that because a lot of kids do that. They need that support. They need something that's theirs that is familiar to them in their new space. I also really liked in the story that mum works and dad is the stay-at-home dad and he is the one who takes her to and from school because that opens up a really good discussion, challenges, gender roles. I'm all here for that and as well as that it's just a beautifully illustrated book as well and I'd kind of be remiss if I didn't include Spot Goes to School by Eric Hill because this is just a classic that's been around for years and I remember it from when I started school. It's simple, it's short, it's fun, it's got flaps that you can lift up and see what's going on and kids love Spot because it's bright, it's bold, it's colorful and it's entertaining. It gets a special place on here because of course why wouldn't it? All right and then a couple of other books that aren't specifically starting school related but can help in discussions around starting school. There is a beautiful book called Teaching the Teacher by Janet Van Loon. This one's illustrated by Chantel Stewart. I've actually had this book for years and I found it totally by chance and this is about a little boy who's in class and he ends up daydreaming about all the things that he could teach his teacher and it's hilarious. So he's thinking about all the ways that he could swap places with his teacher, Miss Cherry and teach her all of these things. I have used this in my classroom pretty much every year that I've taught Foundation as I've had the kids tell me what they could teach me and I think it's a really great way to get to know them. It's a great way for them to showcase the strengths that they have and then we usually make our own little class book about it. So this is a really great one for the first week of school. Another really funny story is Your School is the Best by Maggie Hutchings. This is about a cockroach who featured in the story Your Birthday is the Best and this is a sort of follow-up story. It's about a cockroach who tags along to school for the day, causes chaos in the classroom. The poor teacher gets some very unpleasant surprises during this book but the cockroach clearly loves this child and loves the classroom and it was just so funny and hilarious. Kids love these stories because they laugh out loud funny but it is a really great jumping off point to talk about well how is this similar to our school? Not necessarily with cockroach parts but the things that we do during the day. And then I found two picture books on Kindle Unlimited which was really exciting for me and these are beautiful books. Again not first day of school books but definitely getting to know you books. There is Our Class is a Family by Shannon Olson and this is a beautiful book about how your class and your classmates really become like your family at school. They're the people who are there for you that help you out. They look after you when you're feeling sad and it had just this beautiful undertone to it. So it's a really great well-being book and it also had fantastic diversity not just cultural diversity but also people who require different mobility aids and so on and so forth. So it was gorgeous. And then she also had another book that was called A Letter from Your Teacher on the First Day of School and this one I really loved because it is a letter from a teacher to the children letting them know that they're going to be there to support them through the year and that kind of reassurance is really really important as kids are starting school because often it is very scary and they don't know what to expect and they need to know that there is someone there who's got their back. So those are my recommendations for back to school. Hopefully you have found something new. As I said at the start of the video I will leave everything linked down below so that you can check it out in more detail. If you have any questions feel free to let me know or feel free to share your favorite back to school picture books. I would love to expand my collection. If you want to let me know that you're here but you don't want to leave a comment feel free to leave any kind of emoji that represents school to you whether it's a pencil or books or dice or whatever you can think of. Otherwise I hope that wherever you're on the world just staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.