Back to School: On the First Day of Kindergarten by Tish Rabe

It can be scary, going off to the first day of "big school,"and it is important that youngsters know what's going to happen on that important day.

On the first day of Kindergarten I thought it was so cool.

Making lots of friends,
Riding the bus to my school.

Not all kids take the bus, but all of them come to that moment when they and their parents wave goodbye, and they are on their own, but not alone. And in Tish Rabe's jolly sing-along version based on "The first day of Christmas," On the First Day of Kindergarten (Harper, 2018) new students get a preview of school days to come, singing their way through the doings in the first twelve days of school.

Rabe's varied classmates chat excitedly on the bus, and Rabe's young Kindergartner, with her ladybug backpack, twists around in her seat to see the other riders as the bus pulls up to the school, where they are greeted and led into their classroom by their teacher, and their first day begins.

Soon the various touseled-haired moppets are busy doing new things, and adding each new day's events to their song.

On the sixth day of Kindergarten,
I thought it was so cool....

Sliding down the slide,
Singing a song,
Running in a race,
Counting up to ten,
making lots of friends,
and riding my bus to school!

And there are plenty more activities to come, with chances for all sorts of students to shine--painting at easels, laughing together at lunch, and learning new skills in gym--in the days to come in this cheery sneak preview of the opening days of Kindergarten recounted in author Rabe's familiar rhymes and rhythm and artist Laura Hughes' cute ink, watercolor, and digital illustrations of all kinds of kids making messes and working hard at their lessons.

Share this one with the classics, Natasha Wing's The Night Before Kindergarten and Joseph Slate's look at first days from the teacher's point of view, Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten (Miss Bindergarten Books (Paperback)).