Recommended Reading for Grades 3-5

As we honor and celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ history, culture, and contributions during Native American Heritage Month (also known as American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month), PLT compiled a collection of books about nature that you can read to your learners.

Max is a young boy who strikes an unlikely friendship with a monarch butterfly named Lilly, who asks him to plant milkweed so she can lay her eggs on it the following spring. In a world filled with instant gratification, this book highlights how change happens over time and that we sometimes must wait patiently for those changes to occur.

Explore the wonders of weeds with “I Am More Than Just a Weed” by Audra Azoury-Sommer, a book perfect for fostering a love for nature.

This Black History Month, we celebrate the individuals who are inspiring all of us to connect with the environment, whether through their work or through their beautiful words and illustrations about nature.

This book empowers youth to find the beauty of nature wherever they are, and to sow the seeds of change while enhancing their intergenerational relationships.

Michaela Goade celebrates the gifts of the forest with wisdom, gratitude, and kinship with the land in PLT’s latest recommended read, Berry Song.

Poppy is afraid of bees until she begins to learn about all the essential ecosystem services that pollinators—and bees, in particular—provide.

Follow the story of Fatima and the Khazi family, immigrants to the United States, on their very first camping trip together and gain insight into diverse cultural perspectives around the outdoors.

This inspirational short novel for young readers explores the power of writing. Use Word After Word After Word to explore the question, “Why do you write?” and practice your craft.

This book is a celebration of diversity, reminding young readers, 5-8 years, that we are living links between the past and the present. What can knowing about your history teach you about your future? Read Islandborn to find out!

Introduce biodiversity to young readers through this nonfiction picture book that explores a typical day for animals that call a soggy forest home.

An African-American grandmother interweaves stories of her family’s ancestry and culture as she shows her granddaughter how to weave a traditional Gullah basket.

For elementary learners, this picture-book biography on Jean-Henri Fabre illuminates the life of one of the first naturalists to explore the fascinating world of insects.

Wishtree tackles tough topics with scientific facts, all told from the perspective of a generations-old red oak tree. It is best suited for middle grade readers who are growing out of illustrated narrative and into more complex subject matter.

Suitable for grades 3-5, this book reveals some extraordinary indigenous traditions of the arctic tundra as a native Inuit child named Inuujaq sets out on a morning walk with her grandmother.

Use this book’s beautiful, scientifically-accurate illustrations, playful rhymes, and a game of search-and-find, to help children in grades K-4 experience the majesty of redwood trees.

The word “yoga” derives from a Sanskrit word “yuj,” meaning “to unite or integrate.” This book embodies Sanskrit’s yuj and can be used to integrate multiple discipline areas.

This beautiful guide to creating a nature journal will both teach and inspire students (and teachers alike!) to chronicle what they observe in their own backyards.

Who do you trust? Using the different and diverse perspectives of his animal friends, a young boy ultimately finds the answers he searches for.

This children’s book for grades 2-5 introduces 13 exotic animals using a variety of witty, lively poems that makes learning about these unsung animals fun and exciting.

Use this book with grades K-5 to explore how animals in different habitats use recycled material to build homes, protect themselves, and nourish their bodies.

A collection of children’s books about energy for grades 3-5.