I am linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for a Dr. Seuss theme Five for Friday! Thank you, Kacey, for hosting!
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! There are so many great Dr. Seuss books. I am going to share some easy, fun ideas I use for a few of them. We will be celebrating Dr. Seuss all week.
First of all, if you haven't visited Seussville online- GO! It has so many great activities and games for Dr. Seuss books!
I made a Prezi for you with some Dr. Seuss videos and links to other great Dr. Seuss ideas. I leave it up on the Smartboard when I'm teaching about him. I just updated it and I love it! I hope you enjoy it, too.
Here are some of my favorite activities to celebrate Dr. Seuss. They are simple, easy to plan, and fun for the kids- maybe that's why they are my favorites!
-Show silhouettes of objects or animals and have children name the shapes. Just google image "silhouettes of animals" and you'll have more than you can use! You could even show them on the Smartboard. This one is from Deviant Art. I put one on my Prezi that I use on the Smartboard.
-You can make silhouettes of the children by taping black paper on the Smartboard. Have each child stand sideways in front of the white board, with the light on, and trace their profile. Then, carefully cut the profiles out and glue onto another piece of light colored paper. The children always love this activity. It makes a nice gift for parents, too.
-Sort shapes of candy bars. You can trace around different mini candy bars and have the children match the candy to the shape. Then, put them in a big bowl and let children choose a piece.
Or each child can have a little bag of different shaped candy of his/her own!
-Put shapes or letters on a dark piece of construction paper in front of a sunny window. Leave it for the week, then take them off. The tricky part is reminding the children NOT to touch anything. You can laminate the construction paper and have a shape or letter sorting activity. You can also make shadows by putting shapes on paper and copying it in the copy machine!
- Talk about rules for being at home when parents are gone.
- Talk about stranger safety.
- Have each child learn their telephone number and address, as well as 911 for emergencies.
Science:
- Talk about why it rains and the water cycle. Sing my favorite song...
Writing:
-List all the things you can do on rainy days in the house.
-Design and label a machine that could clean up your room.
-Write an acrostic poem for CAT or HAT.
Finally, how about looking at some cats in hats? (This video is on my Prezi- along with "How to Draw The Cat in the Hat.")
You could even use this as a writing prompt for the kids to follow up writing about and describing their favorite hat on a cat- OR what hat they would put on their cat. It would be a great detail lesson.
-Hop on Pop is a fun book to use for rhyming (of course...). I like to play a rhyming game with the class after we read this. I write several words on 3X5 cards and put them in a bag. Choose words that are easy to rhyme with other words like hop, cat, pin, bed, book, cup...The children sit in a circle. The leader picks a word that I have written and thinks of a rhyming word to go with it. Then, the next person has to think of a rhyming word. This continues around the circle until we can't think of any more rhyming words. The next person in the circle draws another word, and the game continues.
-Another fun game is to write pairs of rhyming words on 3X5 cards. One card has "cat." One as "bat." One has "pin." One has "fin." etc. Make enough pairs so each student has a card. The children spread out all over the room. Then, shuffle the cards and give one to each child. The children have to find their matching rhyming card. When they find their match, the pair sits down wherever they are.
-One more fun game I call "Hop on Pop." As we read through our sight word flash cards, I put the word "pop" in the pile several times. Every time we come to the word "pop," the kids have to hop ten times! They love it. We read the words fast- and hop fast, or slow and have to hop slowly... It's just fun.
- Use colored goldfish crackers as manipulatives for addition/subtraction word problems, sorting, patterning, or counting.
-Have children get into pairs. Each pair draws a big circle or fishbowl on a paper and has 20 goldfish and a die to roll. The first partner rolls the die. They count that many fish to put into their fishbowl. Once all of their fish are used up, the keep rolling, but this time, they subtract that many goldfish from the bowl.
-Here is a simple new game I thought of for Green Eggs and Ham, that the kids LOVE, using my plastic green Easter eggs. I printed CVC words, and put one in each egg. One of the eggs has the word "ham." The children sit in a circle, and each child chooses one egg. We go around the circle, and each child opens and reads his/her word. The child with the word "ham" is the winner of the round! Once we finish, they put the words back in the egg, the eggs back in my bag, and we play again!
You could also have the children open the egg and write their word on the dry erase board or on a sheet of easel paper to collect a list of the CVC words.
This is a fun partner game, too. Have all of the eggs in a container, and have each partner take out one at a time, and read the word. Both partners record the word. The partner who chooses the egg with "ham" is the winner! You could use sight words or numbers in the eggs - whatever you want the kids to practice. Just have one egg with "ham" in it and you are good to go!
Here are some CVC words to use if you'd like them. I printed mine on card stock so they were sturdy.
These green eggs and ham are from Artisian Cake Company. I like this idea better than scrambled eggs, because you could make this ahead of time and not worry that they're not hot.
These, from Love From the Oven are so cute (and simpler and easier to make ahead and bring into school!), too!
Hi! This was a really quick week. First, we had Monday off. Next, we had a fabulous snow day (well timed, after the Grammys). THEN, we had a 2 hour delay the following day. Thursday was our 100th day of school. And finally, all of a sudden- Friday! That sounds like some sort of "how-to" book. Maybe "How To Have a Great School Week" would be a good title for that book...
I'm linking up with Kacey for her wonderful Five for Friday. Thank you, Kacey!
Here is one of my new bulletin boards for our hall. I had the kids write one of the pieces of advice on each sentence strip. I thought we needed some sunshine!
We had our 100th day of school on Thursday. I love having the kids make 100 cup structures. It is so great for them to work and plan together.
Each year the children bring in collections of 100 things- usually Legos, cars, or Pokemon cards- but this year, one of my boys brought in 100 water beads for us to "grow" during the day. That was a huge hit!
For writing, the children ask friends to sign their paper labeled "The Friends I've Been With for 100 Days." The kids called this, "Fun Writing." (As opposed to... ??? What? Every other day that ISN'T fun writing? Oh well...)
This is our 100 Day Trail Mix. Everyone brings in 100 of something delicious to dump into the mix. The reviews were... "This is the BEST DAY EVER!" So I think it was a hit!
I also took the children's pictures for our Spring Smiles board! They LOVE trying to figure out whose smile belongs to whom! This picture is from last year- because I haven't taken a picture of my new ones yet. It's so funny how I can still remember each of these little smiles so well. This is a really fun thing to have up for Open House, too. I leave it up for Grandparent's Day, too.
I posted all about growing our morning glories. Click the picture to go to the post! It's one of my all time favorite things to do now, when it's dreary and gray... It's so hopeful. We have flowers the rest of the year!
I also posted about planting our beans and everything we do to go along with Jack and the Beanstalk. Click this picture to go to that post. That's another favorite of mine!
Have a wonderful weekend! Thank you so much for stopping by!
