Today, March 2, marks one of my favorite dates - especially when I taught a roomful of first graders. It commemorates the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. It is also celebrated as Read Across America day - what teacher doesn't love that!?!?
During my teaching days, our first graders would celebrate this day with a Storybook Parade. Each child would come to school dressed as their favorite storybook character (along with a book about that character) and we would parade up and down the halls for all the school to see. We had Clifford, Franklin, Amelia Bedilia, Tom Sawyer, Junie B. Jones, Max & Ruby, Alice in Wonderland, and many other fun personas over the years. I always dressed as the Grouchy Ladybug (complete with wings and antennae) from an Eric Carle book - a favorite author of mine.
Being out of the classroom, I sometimes miss these special days/activities, but this year I'm so excited! Cole is now old enough to understand and take part in this special day - woohoo!
Since our week will be busy with errands and consignment sale shifts/shopping, I decided to spread out our Seussical activities over the course of the week.
Here's just a taste of what we'll be doing to celebrate reading - got any ideas to share?
* The Cat in the Hat - making a 'hat' snack to share with his MDO class (Oreos, white frosting, and red gummy Lifesavers).
Don't you love the hat!? It's from storytime at FBC Hendersonville. They celebrated Dr. Seuss's b'day last Friday - complete with balloons and cupcakes!
* The Foot Book - tracing Daddy's, Mommy's, Tank's, and Cole's feet. Using them to enhance vocabulary such as largest-smallest and comparing/contrasting the size, shape, etc.
Make a foot painting by letting Cole step in different colors of paint and walking across butcher paper.
* Green Eggs and Ham - making green eggs and ham for breakfast. Read the book while eating.
* Are You My Mother? - puzzle match with mom/baby animals (vocabulary and pictures)
* Bartholomew and the Oobleck - make oobleck (water, cornstarch, and food coloring - such a cool substance!)
* Mr. Brown can Moo! Can You? - make our own book of sounds that we can make and hear
* One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish - practice graphing with a bowl of rainbow goldfish.
* Playing Rhyming Memory with our own cards (find rhyming clip art, print, and glue on index cards)
* Coloring free printables, dot-to-dots, and word searches
* Watching Dr. Seuss books on video (found at the library) and finishing out the week with Horton Hears A Who for movie night.
I hope that you also take this wonderful opportunity to reinforce with your children the love and joy of reading. It makes a world of difference!
5 comments:
Great ideas! Have a fun week!
Great ideas Adrian!
What great ideas!!! I love the cookies! Too cute! And the tracing of the feet - never thought of that and since the boys love the foot book, I will have to do that with them sometime this week!
It sounds like you're having a fun and busy week. I'll be sure to ask Cole which was his favorite activity. Give him a big hug and lots of kisses from Papa and Gigi.
Are you missing teaching? Home school for Cole? You are so creative - he is getting more from you than he ever would in a classroom. You are a great mom!
Post a Comment