The Kids Want to Learn!

Kicking off 2025 with these books for my second grader’s class!

First, Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and a great start to 2025! I am excited for the new year and the new energy that turning the calendar page to a new year brings.

My kids were on break for about a week and a half. They went back to school yesterday and today I had the opportunity to go into their school and read to my second grader’s class! Lately, I have been hearing a narrative that kids today are not interested in learning and do not care about much other than devices and screens. Well, my experience and observations of the kids today tell the opposite story.

I read three books to the class: Lefty: A Story That Is Not All Right by Mo Willems and Dan Santat, Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and Because by Mo Willems. The kids were engaged and excited to participate as I read each of the books to them. I had them read with me for a good part of Exclamation Mark - the book lends itself well to choral reading - and the kids were so excited to read as a collective. I went over the parts of a book with the class - asking them to name parts of the book, such as the front and back of the book, the title page, the spine, and I taught them about the endpages of a book (my favorite part!). I read two books by Mo Willems and shared that Mo hides the Pigeon in each of his books. They were very excited to find the Pigeon in Because - and many of the kids are ready to find the Pigeon in Mo Willems’ other books! They were up for the challenge!

My take-away from today’s experience - challenge the kids because they are up for it! They want to read good books and they want to discuss them. We need to make sure we are giving them many opportunities to do so.

What are you most excited to teach your students this year? Send over a reply - I’d love to hear!

And, again - here’s to a Happy 2025!