We started today by wishing Dr. Seuss Happy Birthday in our journals. I didn't put a sentence starter on the board but I showed the children where they could find the words Happy Birthday and Dr. Seuss in our room (our birthday chart and our basket of Dr. Seuss books). They also had to write "I like you because...". They did a great job but did I get any photos?!!!
So...I mentioned yesterday that after playing the rhyming card match up game with pocket chart that today they would make a Four Square page using those rhyming pairs. I was really impressed! There were only two that struggled with it-most everyone got it!! Yay! I worked one-on-one with the two that had difficulty during our intervention time in the afternoon.
We read about Theodor Geisel and learned what an interesting person he was.
This is my sample for his page that we will make for our Famous Americans book.
The children will also write facts they have learned about Dr. Seuss.
I thought I would include some predictable text about all the books we are reading this week.
We will use these cards again tomorrow as another reading activity. The children will match word cards to each picture as they match them up again.
This week is so much fun and makes it very easy to incorporate many standards into the week's lesson plans. These activities cement rhyming words and nonsense words for many of the children. I love it!
I have a slightly different approach to my Dr. Seuss unit this year and I wanted to show you what we have worked on so far! Click here to see how we celebrated Theodor Geisel's birthday in my class last year. I have a darling little girl in my room this year with a severe allergy to eggs and dairy so I wanted to come up with something fun to do for Dr. Seuss without eggs. My teammate and friend, Michele, thought of making green "eggs" out of jello with a marshmallow center. Eureka! All I have to do is find a flower (egg shaped) cookie cutter by Thursday and I'm in business!. Thank you, Michele! I am also toying with making Oobleck with the kids so if anyone has any recipes or hints, I am all ears!
Of course, we start by reading as many Dr. Seuss books as possible the first few days. They love it right off the bat!
Who doesn't love Green Eggs and Ham?!
Wow! I read this one today and I always forget how tongue-tied I get! It's hard to be cool on this job.
Before I read each book I ask the children to listen for three different things in all Dr. Seuss books. He was famous for his nonsense words...what a great way to segue into seriously hitting nonsense word practice for DIBELS!
his Make-Believe characters...
and of course, his love of rhyming words!
I give each table a book we have already read and they work as a team (ok, they really TRY to work as a team) to find examples to fit into each of the three categories.
They take turns giving me examples for us to chart.
so eager...
We will continue to add to our charts as we read a new book each day until we fill up our charts. I am going to make a writing activity for them to complete that will coincide with the charts. I will post on this later. :)
We are incorporating Dr. Seuss into our literacy centers. Hop on Pop is at Listening Center.
In their Listening Journal, they will list a pair of rhyming words from the story and illustrate.
They may also get a white board and make their own rhyming sentences. She read "I like box" and "I like socks" to me.
I had rhyming cards from our Read Well series that they paired up using the pocket chart. A little noisy but mission accomplished. Tomorrow they will make a "Four Square" page (a piece of paper folded into four squares) illustrating and listing four pairs of rhyming words using these cards.
A rhyming match-up game.
I buy these literacy games at Marshall's, Ross and TJ Maxx. I have never paid over $5.00 for one and I still see them there often.
These are the hats we will make to wear on Friday. Ms. Potts is a step ahead of the game!
This is the recipe card used for sequencing to make green eggs and ham. Ms. Potts class worked on these today. The kids love it and many will come back later and say they used it at home to make the eggs and ham with their family! Cool!
I also wanted to show you what Maisha Booker has done with her class to celebrate Black History month. She completes a wonderful study and I love what she did with Harriet Tubman's page! Her class will have an entire book for Black History to take home and share.
She used the fold-over flap book for their writing. The children wrote a fact about Harriet Tubman on each flap and illustrated it.
Lana Holzer's class completed a page on Garrett Morgan-the inventor of the stoplight.
I also wanted to show Michele Potts' Flag page for their American Symbols book.
The fact writing is fantastic!
I will post more on how we continue to celebrate Dr. Seuss. I will include our page for our Famous Americans book on Theodor Geisel and our Cat in the Hat scrapbook page. In the meantime, have a Seussical week!
We have so many activities for Dr. Seuss in celebration of his birthday for Read Across America-here are just a few!
Of course, we read Cat in the Hat, Hop on Pop, ABC and many, many more but part of our main focus is Green Eggs and Ham.
We read the story, chart rhyming word pairs, talk about trying new foods, etc. Then we talk about how to make green eggs and ham. What do you need? What turns the eggs green? What happens first, second, last? Each child gets a recipe chart and a sentence strip. We read the simple text, talk about each step and start cutting. I wish I had better photos of this process but I don't! Each child cuts out the six pictures showing the sequence of steps. They number each picture and glue them on their sentence strip in the correct order. They now have their own recipe to take home for green eggs and ham!
First, the children has to read the recipe out loud, step by step so we can make our own green eggs and ham as a class! I heat up the electric skillet and each child gets to take a turn cracking their own egg into our bowl. They LOVE this part!
Some are nervous...
Some are excited!
Some just like posing with their egg!
Now the children have to walk me through these steps -reading their recipe cards- I beat the eggs with my green whisk 20 times. I add 20 small pieces of cheese, 20 small pieces of ham and 20 drops of green food coloring. (I had 20 students). The children count with me each time. NO one is fidgeting, out of their seat or goofing off, they are glued to this process!
I pour the mix into the skillet and s.l.o.w.l.y stir 20 times while we count together.
Can you say Y.U.M.M.Y?!
Before anyone gets their bowl, we make a prediction as to whether we will like the green eggs and ham or NOT .
They try their eggs and give me a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Most are excited they are eating something soooo exotic!!
Alright!!
After everyone has eaten, we then make a graph to chart how many liked the green eggs and ham and how many did not. I don't have a photo of our graph (darn!) but the majority liked them this year. Next year is another story...
Towards the end of our unit, our wonderful reading coach, Mrs. Yokley, puts together the Dr. Seuss Cafe for us to attend in the Library. Our librarian, Mrs. Barnett, gladly plays the part of the Cat in the Hat!
Here is Mrs. Yokley with students enjoying her hard work! Older students play host and servers. They escort the children to a table where the children choose from a menu of Dr. Seuss books. The servers then read the books to their table. The children are served multi colored goldfish crackers and have a chance to color a Dr. Seuss mask. They love every minute!!
Look at how the library is transformed by Mrs. Yokley, Mrs. Barnett and Mrs. Gautreaux into the Dr. Seuss Cafe!
This Mrs. Booker's class posing in front of the cafe-this photo goes into each child's Kindergarten Scrapbook-so sweet! What a wonderful experience! I have a section of my reading center that is dedicated to Dr. Seuss books and after this unit, the kids absolutely can not get enough of his books...which is the ultimate goal!
I teach Kindergarten and LOVE it! I have an amazing team of teachers that I work with and we are constantly challenging ourselves to come up with fresh, new ways to motivate five year olds to reach as far as they can go! Kindergarteners are funny, full of energy
and ideas and very loving-they are some of my favorite people.
This is my seventh year teaching Kindergarten at Providence and I am very happy to be here.
I am married and have two exciting,
interesting daughters that keep us very busy. My husband, Greg was active
duty military for 23 years which means we have lived in many different places-Georgia,
California, Alaska, Washington and Florida but our favorite place to be is
Huntsville, Alabama! We are very happy to call this our home. Shanley is 20
and a Junior at Auburn University. Delaney is 17 and is in her Senior year of High School. They love to visit my
classroom when they can and get to know the kids they hear me talking about
all the time!
We like to camp, go to movies, visit family, read, go to church, travel and
play with our
two dogs-Bomber and Cracker. It's an exciting life and I'm happy to share it with you!
