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Executive functioning skills are the actual building blocks of learning! While they can be tricky to teach, we do have some really awesome tools teachers can rely on to focus on the ones that we notice are lagging amongst our students. Executive functioning skills also do fall under the umbrella of social emotional learning, too. When my passion for picture books and my love for social emotional learning align, my heart skips a beat. I compiled a list of 10 beautiful picture books with an executive functioning focus. Check out the links and read the description to see which EF skill each book focuses on!
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The Messy One by Christianne C. Jones
This book is silly and sweet, and could easily be a favorite for so many elementary age students. If you have students that were anything like me as a student, some of them are pretty messy and unorganized. This book has a focus on the skill of organization and self management in a fun, non-threatening way!
Fix it with Focus by Bryan Smith
This book is part of the Executive FUNction series through Boys Town Press. This picture book is more explicit as it walks readers through a narrative from a relatable student, and teaches several skills using FOCUS as an acronym. Students can walk away from this book learning more about focusing, staying on task, and with new tools they can rely on.
I Can’t Find My Whatchamacallit! By Julia Cook
Another book focusing on executive functioning skills! This silly yet practical book targets self management, organization, and self monitoring. Not being able to find things is such a classic problem for students with executive dysfunction and/or ADHD. This book makes this common struggle really relatable and also offers tangible strategies!
Too Many Toys by David Shannon
While it feels like this book focuses explicitly on organization, I see so many executive functioning skills being targeted across the book. Self management, organization, focus, task initiation, follow-through, and more. David Shannon is such a fun and beloved author, you know your kids will eat this book up.
Respect and Take Care of Things by Cheri J. Meiners
This book also takes a really explicit approach to addressing executive functioning skills. Often we see books that solely focus on respecting others with our words, which is so important. This picture book takes it one step further and explicitly teaches, through clear illustrations and text, how respecting and taking care of items is also a way of respecting people.
Looking for more blog posts about executive functioning skills?
The Secret to Teaching Executive Functioning Skills
Unpacking Executive Functioning Skills
