
Looking for a list of fantastic spring read alouds for Preschool and Early Elementary children? Are you looking for a great picture book to help welcome the signs of spring? There is nothing like the excitement of flowers blooming, snow melting, and longer days!
Bring that excitement to your classroom with a beautiful book. I love adding new books to my classroom library (at school and at home!) I hope this selection of my favorite spring books helps you celebrate the arrival of spring in your classroom this year!
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1. When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes
Full disclosure…I love Kevin Henkes books for the primary classroom! I find that all of his books serve as fantastic mentor texts and provide great jumpstarts for writing prompts. This sweet book takes a young reader through the transition from cold winter snow to the blossoming spring. It is a wonderful book that shows the changing seasons and talks about the arrival of new spring animals.
When Spring Comes is a good book for children in preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary grades. It can also be a great book for ELL learners learning about the spring season. You have to have some great Henkes books in your list of great Spring Read Alouds for Preschool and Early Elementary children.
2. My Garden by Kevin Henkes
Did I mention Kevin Henkes writes some of my favorite books for early elementary students? This is a wonderful book where the main character is a little girl helping her mother in the garden. As she plants, she imagines what creative things she could grow in her own garden! Soon, she dreams of growing chocolate rabbits, seashells that grow new seashells, and a jelly bean bush!
With its gorgeous illustrations, My Garden is a wonderful book to spark imaginative spring activities. Allow children to imagine what they might grow in their own creative garden. Make an anchor chart and then allow your kindergarteners or first grade students to design their own gardens. It is so much fun to see what they can imagine. Make sure to leave time for sharing their creativity!
3. Everything Spring by Jill Esbaum
Everything Spring is a lovely book to celebrate baby animals in a blossoming new season. This beautiful nonfiction text with lovely photographs of baby animals and green grass is a great spring resource. Use it to talk about how different animals enter the spring season. Add this one to your list of informative text options.
You can use Everything Spring as an anchor text to make a list of all kinds of spring facts. It is also a perfect book to touch on life cycles with young children. Combine it with a writing activity such as writing an informational paragraph or citing facts and opinions about spring animals.
4. Animals in Spring by Martha Rustad
My classroom library includes several nonfiction texts from Pebble Go’s collection. This book Animals In Spring by Martha Rustad is a great spring resource to add to your list of spring books. In this text, spring comes with the arrival of baby animals. This informative book has fantastic photographs and simple text featuring the beautiful season of spring. Say goodbye to winter and hello to spring with this adorable book.
A fun activity with this text might be to divide students into small groups. Have each group pick a spring baby animal to research together. Use online resources and encourage the children to use a library card to check out books related to their animals. This would be a great introduction to research-based writing! Allow students time to research, write, and present their findings about springtime to the class.
5. And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano
This sweet book by Julie Fogliano is about a young boy and his dog. This would be perfect for a preschool book list or for early elementary children. The boy and his dog grow tired of the snowy, muddy ground, so they decide to plant a garden. Though they check for new leaves and flowers each day, there is little sign of growth in the beginning. But, eventually, a beautiful garden begins to grow.
One of the best things about this text is the beautiful illustrations. The book has woodblock and pencil illustrations which my young readers love to try to duplicate in their own style!
This book is a great introduction to talking about plant growth with students, even during the long winter. Talk about the life cycle of plants and how new life will eventually grow from small seeds. Consider planting your own small flower garden or veggie garden with your class, if it is allowed, and if you have room! What a great way to talk about plant growth during a science spring unit. This would also be a great book to consider for Earth Day!
6. From Seed to Plant by Kristin Rattini
If you are looking for different books to teach about the life cycle of a plant or seed unit in the early grades, consider this great nonfiction text from National Geographic Kids. I really like these texts for the vibrant photographs and the clear nonfiction text features. They are fantastic for pointing out things like table of contents, captions, charts, index, etc. Informational texts are always great to include in a list of Spring Read Alouds for Preschool and Early Elementary.
You could use this text to make an anchor chart about aspects of nonfiction books. I like to give my students sticky notes to mark their own nonfiction books with what they can find: table of contents, bolded words, index, photographs, captions, etc. Then, allow the children to share with one another what they learned from different nonfiction texts.
7. The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
If you have spent any time in an early elementary classroom, you are very familiar with Eric Carle and his lovely illustrations. His bright pictures are the best. In fact, I love his drawings so much that I based my oldest child’s second birthday all around Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar!
The Tiny Seed is a classic tale about how a tiny seed turns into a field of wildflowers. This cute story is a perfect jumping-off point for amazing colorful crafts! I love using this text with vivid tissue paper. We create our own beautiful flower garden with tissue paper flowers. Perfect for a vibrant spring bulletin board!
8. Worm Weather by Jean Taft
Worm Weather is a sweet book by Jean Taft about the fun of dashing through the rain. It is filled with lots of muddy puddles to explore and worms to find with a lovely rhyming text. This is a sweet book to read with preschoolers and early elementary students. Consider using it with a lesson about rhyming words or writing simple poems together. Perfect for this time of year and a great addition to your classroom library.
9. Mouse’s First Spring by Lauren Thompson
Mouse’s First Spring is a great story of a Mouse who discovers all kinds of spring blowing in: a butterfly, snail, frog and worm, to name a few. He asks his mother about all of these things and she teaches him about the signs of the coming season.
This is a good book to add to your seasonal read-alouds for preschoolers and early elementary children. My own children love reading it to their younger sister and teaching her all about spring rising up around us.
10. It’s Spring by Linda Glaser
It’s Spring by Linda Glaser is a fantastic book about all the changes occurring in spring. Glaser covers the birth of new animals, the growth of plants, and the changing weather. My favorite part of this book is the illustrations. The paper sculpture style makes it almost seem like you could touch the animals and plants! This is a perfect book to pair with an art project. It might be the best way to make some literacy connections with your art teacher and allow the children to create their own sculptures of a happy spring!
11. Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn
Lola Plants a Garden by Anna McQuinn follows a young girl inspired to plant her own garden of flowers. She plants and waits patiently, deciding to create her own book of flowers while she waits for her plants to grow. In the end, she celebrates her garden of sunflowers with a tea party with her friends.
I think it would be sweet to end your spring unit with this book. Have children design their own garden flowers to decorate the classroom. Then, host a fun Friday tea party with yummy cakes and drinks to celebrate the arrival of the spring season! Add this one to your list of new read-alouds!
I hope this list of my favorite Spring Read Alouds for Preschool and Early Elementary gives you some ideas for the perfect spring books for your students! If you are looking for some additional book lists for other seasons, be sure to sign up for my free monthly book list for every season of the year. Happy reading and happy spring!
For more fun ideas for your classroom, hop to another blog post:
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Easter Books for Babies and Toddlers
Best Valentine’s Day Books for Preschoolers and Toddlers
Winter Read Alouds for Children
10 Winter Books for Preschoolers

These look great! Worm Weather has been added to my list!
Fantastic! Thanks for reading!
Saving this list for reference for our next library trip! Thank you for putting it together, we love Kevin Henken’s books so I’m excited to check out his books about spring.
Yes! Love Kevin Henkes too!
What a great list! I wish I’d had resources like this when I was a teacher!
So glad you enjoyed!
Such cute book recommendations! We actually have a few of these!
Great! Thanks for reading!
Great list! We’ll have to head to the library and see if we can find some of these books.
Fantastic! Thanks for reading!