Books Teachers Love – February Read Alouds For Your Classroom

Thank you for stopping by for the January edition of Books Teachers Love. Each month, the BTL crew shares favorite read alouds for the upcoming month and give away four of the ten featured books to one lucky winner. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post for links to the other books in this month’s hop and enter our giveaway. I hope you enjoy reading about a few of our read aloud faves and pick up some new lesson plan ideas in time for February prep.

Book Overview

One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo features a very proper young man named Elliot who decides to take a penguin home as a pet during his visit to the local aquarium. Elliot researches everything he needs to know to make his home a perfect new habitat for his penguin Magellan.

His father, who is almost always consumed with researching the natural world, doesn’t even realize he has a live penguin living in his home until one evening when he finds Magellan in the bathtub. Elliot is an adorably polite role model who can inspire your students to act on their natural curiosity and explore the world through research.

Using This Book To Launch Your Penguin Research Unit

During the months of January and February, my second graders participate in one of our largest project-based learning units: The Penguin Conference. This unit is all about nonfiction reading, expository writing, and research skills. Based on my Pinterest research, it seems that many primary teachers use penguins as their focus topic for nonfiction units during this time of year, so I couldn’t resist sharing a perfect read aloud to boost students’ excitement about researching this popular topic.

More Books Teachers Love

To read about other read alouds for the month of January, visit the rest of our Books Teachers Love posts here. Visit this page to find my Books Teachers Love posts for other months.