20 Christmas Books to Build Language, Joy & Connection✨ Part 1
Part 1: Christmas Classics for Early Readers (Ages 1–4)
The holiday season is full of routines, surprises, and magical moments—making it the perfect time to pair festive books with communication opportunities! I'm sure we're not the only household who does this, but we have tons of book boxes in the attics. Two of the holidays boxes are 1: Christmas/winter books 2: All.Other.Holidays! LOL. Our Christmas books trump all other seasons and it doesn't matter how old the kids are, they still love going into that box because there's books for all ages there!
But the books we’re going to focus on here are the ones perfect for toddlers, early language learners, and emergent AAC users. :) But there are always Christmas classics that support labeling, commenting, requesting, and expanding short phrases that I can also use in the classroom or therapy session!
My Book List is LONG so we decided to separate it into a few blog posts… today’s being the first one!
What Language & AAC Targets I consider ...
Core words: LOOK, OPEN, MORE, HELP, GO, STOP, WANT, WOW, YES/NO
Comments: “I see it!” “So silly!” “Uh-oh!”
*Early sequencing: first–next–last
Holiday vocabulary: tree, lights, gifts, reindeer, Santa
🎨 Activity Pairings
Merry Christmas, Mouse! → Count ornaments together; allow child to choose colors on AAC.
Little Blue Truck’s Christmas → Practice “GO” vs “STOP” on the device as the truck drives.
Bear Stays Up → Act out “wake up,” “sleep,” “help bear.”
Dear Santa → Model “OPEN” each time your child lifts a flap.
Click, Clack, Ho Ho Ho → Let kids predict with “WHAT?” or “WHO?” on AAC.
