1-2-3 Come Do Some Lorax and Mustache Activities With Me
I'm clueless, as to why the mustache theme started in the first place, and continues to be so popular. However, I'm a firm believer in using what's a "hot button" for children to help grab their attention and then engage them in learning.
Since the Lorax sports a wonderful big-yellow fluffy mustache, I designed some activities featuring this colorful creature. Today's blog features some of my most popular Lorax-themed downloads.
Making a mustache/moustache to launch a writing prompt, is an interesting and "Suessical" way of doing things, that I think your students will enjoy. Make a sample, cover your nose, and ask your students in a deep voice: "I mustache you, would you save a Truffula tree?" Thus begins the fun writing prompt "craftivity."
While children are working, you can play the "Let It Grow" song from the Lorax movie. Click the link for the Lorax YouTube song video.
For an adorable bulletin board, take everyone's photograph wearing their mustache and put it next to their writing. Flank the board on either side with 2 colorful truffula trees.
Mrs. Lodge, a very creative librarian, used PVC pipe to make some beautiful truffula tree trunks.
You can also make the truffula trunks out of pool noodles and then stripe with colorful Duct tape. I especially like these green and blue ones that EmBellish made for her 1st grade classsroom.
While you're "truffulling" why not whip together some truffula pencils.
Writing about saving a truffula tree, with a truffula pencil will certainly add to the fun.
These were made by Jin Yong. Click on the link to get directions over at Under The Cherry Tree Blog.
Since the Silly Shaped Penguins, Owls, and Chicks have been such a huge hit, I designed some featuring the Lorax. His easily recognizable, bright-orange oval-ish shape and yellow mustache, is perfect for other shapes too.
For an interesting and fun shape review during Seuss Week or March is Reading Month, make a set and use them as anchor charts or big flashcards.
Toss in some math, by graphing everyone's favorite shaped Lorax. Simply hang your Lorax samples in a row on the white board.
Have students write their name under the one that they like best, or have students choose their favorite shape and make their own.
If you want to add a bit of keepsake-value to their shape, have children use their hand prints for the mustache. Add wiggle eyes, and accordion-folded, construction paper arms and legs.
Suspend the Lorax shapes back-to-back from the ceiling, or mount them on a bulletin board flanked by truffula trees. Your caption could be: "Reading Really Gets Us In Shape!"
To introduce the emergent reader shape booklet, also in the packet, tell students that the Lorax ate some leaves from the truffula tree and has Truffula-itis, which made him lose his normal shape.
They can help him return to the real Lorax oval shape, by completing their Shapely Lorax emergent reader, circling the capital letters, adding end punctuation, tracing and writing the shape word, and then tracing and drawing the shapes etc.
Click on the link to view/print the Lorax Shape Packet.
Finally, I used the Lorax's face to make a clock, and the truffula trees to show digital time. There are 2 different games in the "It's Truffula Time" packet.
In the first game, students play in groups of 2-4, taking turns spinning the Lorax clock. Whatever analog time they land on, they trace the digital time on their truffula tree trunk.
Students can also use the Lorax spinner clock, to write numbers on their mini-clock recording sheet.
For this game, they can substitute dice for a spinner, rolling first 1 die for clock times 1-6, then adding two dice for the rest of the times to the hour.
Run the trufulla tree tops on colored copy paper and have students cut and glue their tree top to their digital answer sheet. Click on the link to view/download the Lorax Truffula Telling Time packet.
Well that's it for today. Thanks for visiting. Our week of Seuss is almost over, so it's time to start working on some activities for St. Patrick's Day. Wishing you a colorful and creative day.
"I like nonsense. It wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient to living." -Dr. Seuss
1-2-3 Come Do Some Seuss-Themed Writing Prompts With Me
Louis L'amour said: "Start writing no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." However, if "It's time to do some writing..." is greeted with a cacophony of classroom groans, it's definitely time to fuel your students' imaginations, peak their interest, and tweak what they write, so that they'll WANT to.
Many Dr. Seuss books, lend themselves to interesting and fun writing prompts. (For a complete list of his books, scroll down to yesterday's article.) Today's blog features some of my most popular, Seuss-themed, writing prompts. Hopefully, writing time, will be met with the more harmonious and intellectual sounds of engaged and busy minds happily working away.
After reading Dr. Seuss's ABC book, create a silly, creature-filled class-made alphabet book. Print and trim the mini letter tiles. Toss them into a Seuss hat. Students choose one, glue it to their page and think of a creature that starts with that letter.
Stress imagination and creativity. These should be made up creatures like the ones that Dr. Seuss thought of. Younger students can simply name their animal and draw a picture.
Encourage and challenge older students to make a rhyming sentence, using plenty of tongue-twisting alliteration like Dr. Seuss.
For example, Zz is for a Zigglewag who likes to play wiggle tag. He eats zinnias, zingles and zag, all of which make me personally gag. or Bb is for Boomtoot, who's from Bangladoot and likes to eat fruit, especially bapples, belon and bloot.
The packet includes a page for students and one for the teacher, a sample, plus 26 Seuss-font letter tiles.
Another Alphabet book I think your students will enjoy making is On Before Ant. This is a take off of Dr. Seuss's book On Beyond Zebra, which is about all of the letters that come after Z. In the beginning of the story, Cornelius is bragging that he knows all of the letters from A to Z.
He's shocked to find out that there are more! "Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor, when I picked up some chalk and drew one letter more. A letter he never had dreamed of before..." like the letter Snee, which is for "...sneedle, a terrible kind of ferocious mos-keedle. Whose hum-dinger stinger is as sharp as a needle. "
All of these goofy letters have a name and symbol. I thought it would be fun to make a class book of all of the pretend letters that might possibly come before the letter A.
Run off copies of the inside page and have students think up a letter, design it, and then give an example of something that starts with that letter, finishing up with an illustration. After students share their work, collect the pages, collate and make into a class book.
Another interesting writing prompt, has to do with Seuss's book If I Ran The Circus.
The packet includes a class book with two writing prompts to choose from, as well as a 3D cylinder "craftivity."
Students color and cut out their circus tent and then attach their completed writing prompt paper to either side, so that they can bend it into a cylinder shape.
The photo shows the various views of a completed project. Punch holes on either side, add a yarn loop and suspend from the ceiling.
For that finishing touch, children add a toothpick flag, and then choose either a clown or a ringmaster to color and glue their photo on top of that face, so that it looks as if they are peeking out of the tent flap.
Two more writing prompt "craftivities" go along with Seuss's book, Oh The Places You'll Go. Ironically, this was the last book published before his death in 1991.
On the large bucket, students think of 5 places they want to visit.
They write the place, followed by what they want to see or do there.
On the small bucket, students think of all of the things they'd like to do.
This can be for the month, year, in 5,10,20 years, or a list of all that they want to accomplish in their lifetime. Completed projects make terrific bulletin boards.
I've also designed a 3-dimensional "Oh the Places You'll Go" writing prompt balloon, which features 3 simple prompts younger students can do: "My favorite place to go is _________. " "A place I'd like to go is _________." and "A place I've been is ________."
Run the basket template off on brown construction paper. For that finishing touch, students glue their photograph inside.
This is one of those "awwww-dorble" keepsake activities that mommies are especially fond of.
Another one is the Lucky Ducky writing prompt craftivity, which was inspired by Seuss's book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
To read more about it, and grab this sweet FREEBIE, click on the link.
Finally, after reading Dr. Seuss's book, What Was I Scared Of? discuss what kinds of things people are afraid of, and how they can overcome their fears.
The packet includes a class book writing prompt, as well as a more advanced writing prompt for older students. There's also a list of 19 quotes about fear. Share a few in discussion, or have students choose their favorite and comment on it, including why they like it and if they agree with it.
The book, The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything, by Linda Williams, is a wonderful comparison story, and offers more opportunities for writing and discussion. I've included a Venn diagram to help students compare and contrast these two stories.
Well that's it for today. If you're undecided, why not give your students a choice. You may be surprised to find that they want to do more than one! Time for me to go do some writing of my own. Wishing you an imaginative day filled with wonder.
"Fill your pages with the breathings of your heart." -William Wordsworth
1-2-3 Come Review Vowels With The Cat and the Hat and Me
As you add vocabulary words to your word wall, it's a good idea to continue to reinforce vowel sounds with your students. With this in mind, I thought it would be fun to do something with a Seuss theme to review vowels. The Cat in the Hat seemed like the perfect helper.
Using the sweet clip art of myclipartstore.com, I designed Seuss's tall cat to represent long vowels, and then made a shorter cat for the short vowels.
There's a template with all of the vowels on one page, (upper and lowercase versions) as well as patterns with all of the cats showing one letter. This way you can choose to work on one vowel at a time, or all five, picking your pattern accordingly.
Run the cats off, trim and then glue them to the appropriate short and long vowel boxes. I used turquoise paper for the long vowels, and yellow paper for the short vowels. Glue them together, laminate, trim and attach to a Popsicle stick with glue dots.
To easily sort and differentiate, use a different colored Popsicle stick for each vowel group. (For example, all of the A's are on red sticks, the E's on yellow etc.)
I've included a comprehensive list of words for all of the long vowels, as well as a list for all of the short vowels. I drew from elementary word wall lists, as well as the Dolch lists (PK-3rd) so that you have a nice variety to choose from.
Pass out whatever vowel cat paddles that you want to work on, call out a word from your list, and have students flip and hold up their cat paddle with the answer. You can see at a glance who is having difficulty.
If you want to cover all of the vowels at the same time, only the students with that vowel cat hold up their stick. Click on the link to view/download the Vowel Cat in the Hat Paddles packet.
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To see more Dr. Seuss articles, packed with FREEBIES, simple scroll down.
"Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. " -Dr. Seuss
1-2-3 Eat Green Eggs and Ham With Me!
Get your kiddo's "obseussed" with Dr. Seuss by reading a variety of stories besides Cat in the Hat. Green Eggs and Ham, is sure to be a favorite.
I always tried to design activities to go with favorite stories, so that after story time, my Y5's could transition to some sort of activity that would reinforce Standards.
With that in mind, I decided to make several activity packets with a Green Eggs and Ham theme, so that you would have a variety of fun things to choose from.
The Green Eggs and Ham packet is a walloping 65-pages long and covers all sorts of reading and math Common Core State Standards:L.K.2a, L.K.2b, RF.K.2a, RF.K.1d, L.K.1a, L.1.1a, K.CC.1, K.CC.3, K.CC.2, K.OA.5, K.CC.6, 1.NBT.1
There's a little bit of everything for a Seuss-filled day.
My personal favorite, is the 3D writing prompt craftivity pictured. Students' completed projects make a dynamic bulletin board for March is Reading Month.
Children choose either the writing prompt where they LIKE green eggs and ham, or the one where they do NOT like them, and then complete the sentences.
They also illustrate 1/2 a paper plate with 2 things that they like, as well as a combo that is disgusting and that they wouldn't want to eat.
By folding up the edge of the plate, and inserting it through a slit in a sheet of brightly colored construction paper, the plate will appear like a ledge, once it is stapled in place.
The traced hand of the child, is holding up the plate, just like the iconic illustration in Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham book. Add a photograph of the student for that finishing touch. Click on the link to view/download the Green Eggs and Ham Activities Packet.
To round out your day, play the It's Time For Green Eggs and Ham spinner game. Students can choose to play with clocks to the hour, or time to the half hour. Click on the link to view/download the Green Eggs and Ham Telling Time packet.
Review colors and color words in a fun way, with the Green Eggs and Ham Color packet.
Children spin the colored egg spinner. Whatever color they land on, they color the matching color word egg that color. There's also a recording sheet with no words, so really little kiddo's can also easily play the game.
I've also included colored eggs with matching, traceable-color word cards.
These are great for more games or to make an Itty Bitty booklet. Click on the link to view/download the Green Eggs and Ham Color Packet.
Finally, we can't leave shapes out. Where Have My Green Eggs Gone? Is an easy reader shape mystery.
Students read the sentences, circle the capital letters and add end punctuation. They also trace the shape word, write it, trace and draw the shape and then color the shaped egg yolk green.
This booklet reviews the circle, oval, triangle, rectangle, square, hexagon, pentagon and octagon shapes. Click on the link to view/download the Green Eggs Shape Booklet.
If you'd like to see a few more activities you can do with Green Eggs and Ham, simply scroll down for more Dr. Seuss FREEBIES.
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"Never grow a wishbone, where a backbone ought to be." -Unknown
1-2-3 Come Write With Me! Waddle You Write About?
I love using a poster as a segue for a writing assignment. Dr. Seuss's "Lucky Duckie" quotation is a great vehicle for that.
It's from his book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? which is a wonderful story for discussing the theme of contentment, and being happy with who you are.
"Thank goodness for all of the things you are not! Thank goodness you're not something someone forgot...That's why I say, "Duckie! Don't grumble! Don't stew! Some critters are much-much, oh, ever so much-much, so muchly much-much more unlucky than you!"
Print off the poster and share it with your students. In a discussion before hand, brainstorm why a person is lucky. What things do they have, that others who don’t live in America, or who are poor, don’t have etc.
Print off the cover for the class book + the writing prompt page for each of your students.
Remind them of beginning capitalization, end punctuation and spaces between their words and you have covered 3 common core standards.
Students trace the beginning prompt and then complete the sentences: "I think I'm a lucky ducky because..." and "I'm glad I don't..."
Collect and collate the pages and share the completed book with your class, by having each student read their page when you come to it. If you don't want to make a class book, you can use the duck template and make an adorable spring bulletin board for March is Reading Month.
Here's How: Run off the ducks on yellow construction paper.
Students cut them out and then write why they feel they are lucky.
For more pizzazz, add a wiggle eye. student photo, feather, and a 3 dimensional beak. Mount the ducklings on a blue background bulletin board, so that the ducks look like they are swimming in a pond. Add clouds to the sky.
Glue the poster to a sheet of pastel construction paper and put it in the middle of the board. Add some toilet paper roll “cat tails” for a 3D effect + some pastel polka dot or striped bulletin board boarder for that finishing touch.
Click on the link to view/download Dr. Seuss Lucky Ducky Packet.
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"Today you are you; that is truer than true, there is no one else that is youer than you." -Dr. Seuss