Picture Book List

Here is a list of picture books that educators may wish to include in their coding lessons. Beginning a lesson with a picture book is a fun and engaging way to build excitement and curiosity, develop and activate background knowledge, and create a sense of community. Wrapping up a lesson with a picture book is also an effective way to come together, as a group, to consolidate and review some of the concepts that students learned during the lesson and connect to other areas of life.

Many of the books included in this list came from a list originally compiled by Lesley Pike and Melissa Seco. With their permission, we included many of the books in their list and added others we have discovered in connecting and discussing with other educators. Please let us know if you have also used picture books that can be added to this list.

The list has been organized based on the scope and sequence followed in the Weavly curriculum. In some cases, explicit coding vocabulary and concepts are described within the story. In other cases, the stories depict experiences, activities, and adventures to which coding concepts could be applied. These stores helps children to develop an understanding of foundational concepts and anchor new learning to the experiences found in these stories. Educators and facilitators can connect the ways in which coding concepts can be found in many areas of life and literature.

Note: Many of these books can be found as read-aloud on YouTube. Search for your favourite picture books.

Functional Concepts

Sequencing

Debugging

Loops

Events

Conditionals

Functions