A Month of Dr. Seuss

 

I did Read Across America with the littles (TK-first) in March. It's really only supposed to be the first week, but since I only get to see them once a week, that didn't give me much Dr. Seuss time. I chose several different books to read to them and came up with various types of activities to go with each book. 

For all three grades, I read The Butter Battle Book. It's a more obscure Seuss book and very atypical. It is not funny and silly but very serious. Even the TK'ers understood the ridiuclousness of fighting over which side of the bread we butter. None of them got the world comparison of course, and I'd really like to read the book to fifth graders sometime, just to see what kinds of observations and comments they make, especially those who are really interested in WW2.

Anyway, to make the book more special, while I was reading it, the kids were busy shaking up some butter! They loved that. They also got to eat it afterwards. Several of them decided to have their crackers butter-side-down! One kindergartner said, "This is epic!"

I read this book to TK. They got to have pajama day in honor of the book. We also played a rhyming scavenger hunt game. Click here for cards. I stuck a little Dr. Seuss sticker on each one before laminating to make them cuter. The kids had to complete the rhyme (sometimes with a little help) and then go find the next card by following the clue. They loved it.

I read The Cat in the Hat to kindergarten. Of course they had all already heard it, but I quickly asked them if they'd had it read to them by someone with Thing 1 and Thing 2 earrings on!

That made all the difference. They listened well and helped fill in end rhymes for me. Then they got to do the cup-stacking hat activity! So much fun!

I read Horton Hears a Who, another well-known Seuss book, to first grade. Then they did a fun patterning activity with pom-poms which look like Horton's clover. The kids really got into this activity. Then I just let them play with the pom-poms -- super fun!

The next first grade book was Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now. After the book, the kids got to use the Bee Bot and do a transportation-themed coding activity. I made task cards to match the cards in the mat and arrow cards for creating an algorithm. Here's a link to the transportation cards. (They are made to the 15 cm length of Bee Bot movements. I love this purchased mat and have been extremely busy creating cards to go in it for as many units as I can!

The end of our Dr. Seuss study in grades TK - 1 was to celebrate his many books with a bingo game I downloaded for free. Here's the link. I also made a fish cookie ( One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish) for each child. This has been a month of loving it in the library!

I sure loved hearing, "Yum, these are the best cookies I've ever had!" -- Still lovin' it in the library!!!