Dr. Seuss Report

As we are studying nonfiction text and celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday I decided to create a report template that students can use to learn about Dr. Seuss and practice most of their nonfiction concepts.

Plus it makes a great bulletin board display.

I was amazed with the amount of excitement and interest from my students. It may be that I just have a strange group of kids but I am glad that they loved this activity and where engaged. The outcome was exciting especially with the amount of knowledge they gained form this experience.

The report has three pages which I glued to a long construction paper and folded the paper like a folder or you could simply use a folder.

The report consisted of students writing a summary of Dr. Seuss childhood, college, adult life, achievements, and challenges. They also had to choose one cause and effect moment from Dr. Seuss life. Students also had a series of 5 questions to answer by looking back to the passages that I had given them. Students also had to complete a Venn diagram to compare and contrast two articles that I had given them about Dr. Seuss. With this report I introduced the concept of a timeline. For the Timeline we used Seussville which contains a timeline of Dr. Seuss's life.

I wasn't going to end my report there. I also had the students glue examples of different text features they encountered on the back of their report with the name of the text feature and a way that the text feature helped them with their report/reading.

I gave my students three articles to read and analyze:
1. Edhelper Dr. Seuss by Brandi Waters
2. Scholatic News: Get to Know Seuss
3. Biography : Theodore Seuss Geisel by Samantha McClure with Teaching on Cedar Street (This was a wonderful story!!!)

Over all my students and I loved this report and experience. If you would like to get this report you can find it here. 

Read Across America Success

In my last post about Read Across America I had uploaded the Thing Icon with Teacher in it. Here is a picture of how it turned out. We loved the final product. I made the hair like if I was making a tutu. Like my coworkers called it a head tutu, you can find the info on the hairpiece here. 

Also in my previous post I had mentioned an Oobleck activity. This was a great success in my classroom. Other than running out of time, my students and I loved this activity. Students had a new experience and outlook of Oobleck. I will definably do this activity again next year.



This was my door decor for this day. Based on the book, Oh, the Places You'll Go! My decoration consisted of road of different shapes, sizes, and edges. Along the roads there are shoes walking different paths. The shoes are a little booklet where students wrote about where they plan to be when they grew up. It wasn't just for career plans, but in general. For example, where they plan to go to college, where they plan to work, etc. You can get a copy of the shoes here.

During our festivities students ate green eggs and ham. After they ate green eggs and Ham and we read the book students drew where they would like to eat green eggs and ham. I had a range of roller coasters, space, and many others.

Another activity students did was to read directions found on a Jell-O box and to create Jell-O. After students created the Jell-O they placed a couple fishes (of course candy fish). And they had their One Fish, Two Fish.


Students enjoyed following directions, having the experience, and most of all their final product.


Between all the excellent readers and all the exciting activities this was one of the best days this year. It was a day to remember.

Read Across America Preparation Part 2

Hello Everyone! Read Across America is around the corner I can't believe it. We will be hosting our Read Across America Day this week! This year I have used many of the things I have used in the past, with a few exceptions or fixes.

Looking back at my previous Read Across America Preparation post I realized that I never posted the invitation and reminder letter that I carted for this celebration. You can find the file by clicking the files name.


For Read Across America Day I used:

Guest Reader Invitation
I had uploaded this invitation. Most of the text are as a picture format to ensure that everyone gets the finalized file. If you download the Dr. Seuss fonts you can simply insert the information needed on the space provided and have your own invitation. For this file I used a Dr. Seuss font that you can find Here.







Guest Reader Reminder
This may look a bit different from my first post since I could not find my original anywhere. So I recreated it with a different background. Just like the Guest Invitation it is a picture with text boxes where you can insert the information. For this file I used the font A Little Pot. You can find the font  Here.




Oobleck
I am excited for this activity. In the past years I have done Oobleck with my students (green food color, water, and corn starch). I had my students play with the Oobleck and talk about it but never did much with it. This year I am excited to use the worksheet I just created. Student will still experiment with the Oobleck but also incorporate some of the skills that we have been working on during our Literacy block. This is also another FREE item to you can get on my TPT store.



Teacher 1 Teacher 2
My teammates and I want to dress up as Thing 1, Thing 2, Thing 3, and Thing 4 for our Read Across America Day. The problem was that I could not find a logo that said Teacher instead of Thing. So I created one for us. This product has Teacher 1, Teacher 2, all the way to Teacher 8. The logo is done correctly and inverse so that you can use it on which ever paper you have to iron on to your shirt. Oh yeah, IT IS FREE!


I like to try out my products first, but in this case I did not have the opportunity to try the shirt imprint and the Oobleck worksheet. I ended up posting these anyways for those who are looking for these products. If you do use it please let me know how it works out for you, I would love to see pictures.

Read Across America Recap

Mayor G. Stanton and Me

I promised more pictures and ideas for Read Across America day, and I am finally completing my promise. Read Across America Day this year was amazing, we had wonderful guest who read to our students ranging from teachers, newscasters, cheerleaders, to the city's mayor, and secretary of state. Our school was busy and a lot of books were read throughout the day. 

We had other special guest who arrived at our school. The Cat in the Hat, Sam I am, The Grinch, Thing One and Thing Two also visited our school to celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday. The best part is that the students enjoy dressing up as the characters and being helpers for the event. These students get to walk the guest to the classroom where they will be reading at and they get to stay with the guest while they read. It is the students' best memory. 

Thing 1 & 2's headband

These costumes are easily made; The Grinch and Sam I Am costumes were put together by my good friend Pam Gavina. A yellow dress/shirt for Sam I Am and a green long sleeve shirt with a felt heart shape on it. Thing One and Thing Two wore a red shirt with a paper sign on them. I wrote PRO instead of Thing because that is what we call our students at our school. Instead of buying a blue wig I made a headband made of turquoise tulle. The headband was easy to make, just like a tutu. For more instructions on how to create the headband go to this blog, and instead of making a full tutu simply make part of a headband. Remember to adjust the length of the "skirt" because it is hair. : ) 

The readers were also greeted with a treat. This always makes them feel welcomed and appreciated for taking time out of their busy day. The greeting/waiting room area has a sign in sheet. This sheet asks for their address so that students can send thank you cards after the event. In addition, there is water, snacks, and their thank you gifts as shown in a previous blog post. Preparing the snacks is always the fun part, to match a snack with a Dr. Seuss book. No, I wasn't the creative one that came up with all these ideas. I found the ideas online. 

 One Fish Two Fish: Goldfish
The goldfish sign was by Shy By Design. I loved her sign idea and I incorporated it to the rest.  I ran with it. I had Dixie cups where readers could grab some colored goldfish to munch on. The goldfish were in a nice bowl.

Ten Apples Up On Top:  Apples
A basket full of nice red apples with some caramel or Tepin chili as a toping was also placed in the reader's table. I also included a cutting board and an apple slicer. I took the goldfish sign idea and created a similar one for the apples.
 You can get the Ten Apple Sign Here.

Nicole Crites from KPHO CBS 5

Read Across America Preparation

Read Across America is around the corner, and as an organizer there are many things that I have to do to get ready for this wonderful event. This is what I did this year:

Getting Presenters: I used the same invitation that I used last year to invite guest readers to our school.

Gifts for our presenters: During the summer, Target sells their Dr. Seuss items in the dollar section. This year I had to call in favors and had a friend and family members buy these wonderful gifts for our presenters. I filled the bowls, cups, and boxes with different candies, attached a tag, and tied it together to make this a gift to remember. : )

Getting kids ready: This is an exciting event that students look forward to, either to eat some great green eggs and ham or just to have something different occur in their class. One thing they tend to forget is that at the same time that they are having fun, they are also learning in one way or another.

     

Certificates for Presenters: 

The poem on the side of the certificate is from NEA's Read Across America Poem Page. I thought it was a cute message to include in the certificate as a reminder of what the presenters did on March 1st.

The great background was from Scrapdiggity. So the process of creating the certificate was easy.

Making sure the readers don't forget:

With busy schedules it is easy to space out an extra activity. So I took two of Dr. Seuss's quotes and made it into a poem with additional information and lines that I wanted to add. I was able to be creative and fun with this reminder. I just hope the readers will not get offended.

What else? Well there is much more, but those will have to wait until that day. So that I can take great pictures to commemorate this great event. : ) Enjoy

UPDATE: I can not believe I never uploaded and shared the documents. On my pages I have added the invitation and reminder for Read Across America. On the top right side you will find them. 

Read Across America Day

What a fun day where student's and teacher's creativity is let loose. Dr. Seuss Day!!!

Organizing this event is one of the most exciting times of the year. I get to be crazy and silly with my planning. This year especially. Even though I planned it in a weeks time, it was a great success with lots of excellent readers and team members who were willing to be creative with me.

The invitation was a lot of fun to do. I got to be creative and funny as I wanted to make presenters feel a need to join us by not sending the traditional formal letter, but an informal invitation especially since I was organizing this event at the last minute.

Creating the invitation wasn't all the fun I had.


Gathering ideas to decorate and feed the readers was also a lot of fun. I searched and searched and found some great ideas.
Thing One and Thing Two cupcakes. My friend Mrs. McCartney created those delicious beautiful cupcakes. They were to die for. Red velvet with either blue cotton cotton or blue icing on top. The most difficult task about the cupcake project was finding the blue cotton candy. Mrs. McCartney and I searched everywhere to find it, we ended up buying a tub at Wal-Mart that was white and blue cotton candy. 
Not only that, but I created a blue jello with multi-color fish in them for One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. All delirious food in honor of Dr. Seuss.The presenters were not the only ones to enjoy the jello with fish.
 My students made their own jello by following the directions on how to make it and then putting in their fish. They enjoyed this experience a lot. Yummy! I had never realized that there was blue jello until I went to do this project. With 5 jello boxes I was able to do enough for 20 students. The funniest part, is when students I asked that the box states the serving size is 4 (1/2 cup), so how many boxes do each table of 4 students needs in order for every person in their table to get half a cup? I had 3 boxes, 4 boxes, and one person said 1 box. LOL We need to do more logic projects.

One of the gifts the presenters received were a book marker made by ME! With the help of my students who colored the books and drew a Dr. Seuss picture on the back. Mrs. McCartney got this cute ribbon like material that made it look cooky and when placed on the back pocket like a wocket in my back pocket. You can get the book mark poem here for free.









 Two of our wonderful readers in our Read Across America Day!


                         Ms. Lauren did a wonderful job with this sign. Since our school is a huge building and many readers              
were here for the first time. I had seen this idea online, but 
                         didn't know how or have the time to execute this project. So I asked Ms. Lauren. She did a fab job. She is so creative. I made some quotes to place on it to guide the presenters. It was one of the fan favorite decorations for that day. Some staff members even want to make it a permanent object in our school.Sayings:
Barber, baby bumblebee, come read in second grade with me.
To the office or library where will you go?
Oh me! Oh my! Oh me! Oh my! First grades this way, come on by.
Big T, little T, what begins with T? Third Grade
Some chairs are high and some are low off to kindergarten we go!

Seems like fun? Well that was not all. My class got a special treat of Green eggs and ham!
I do not know why? But my picture does not want to come out right. But you can see how, my kids had fun eating green eggs and ham!.