Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

March began with a celebration with all things Dr. Seuss in honor of his birthday which was

 March 2.

                                 

My voracious readers enjoyed many, many books by this wonderful children's author.

 After reading several different titles, each student had to pick their favorite, which proved a very difficult task, as they loved all of them, of course!  Then, they wrote down three parts of the book they particular enjoyed.

The final and most difficult task was choosing one of those reasons and explaining "why" that particular part, or picture helped them choose that book.  Citing evidence from a text to support your opinion is an important part of the new Common Core State Standards.

We compared two of Dr. Seuss' books, "The Cat in the Hat" and "the Cat in the Hat Comes Back" talking about similarities and differences between events, setting, and characters. Comparing similar text is another one of the Common Core State Standards.

  The kiddos then wrote what they would do if "Thing One" and "Thing Two" visited their home. 

  

Another read aloud was the book titled "There's a Wocket in My Pocket." This book focuses on silly rhymes.

 

The boys and girls had to pick a real object and then create a Dr. Seuss-type character to complete their own silly rhyme.

We also read "The Lorax" which is a book about taking care of our environment.

Following this, the boys and girls wrote about something the Lorax had to say in the story and why that was important to our earth.  They also created a cute picture of the Lorax.

Another of the read alouds we enjoyed together was "If I Ran the Zoo."

The students were then asked to write what they would do if they could run a zoo.

The following read aloud was not a Dr. Seuss book, however, it contained some of the nonsense in the style of Dr. Seuss while teaching students about different animal body coverings.

The boys and girls had to pick an animal and tell why they would want that animal's hair. Again, giving students practice in citing reasons to support their opinion.

Whew!  Of course, in addition to the above, we practiced math skills, learned new sight words, and did all of the other typical weekly tasks. All in all, it was a very busy week filled with fun!