Dr. Seuss

It’s Dr. Seuss’ Birthday today.  I hope everyone is having fun celebrating Reading Across America Week. 

Today I have many activities planned that we have done in the past like eating Swedish Red Fish as we read One Fish, Two Fish.

Or making our own Foot Books.

Or making “The Cat in the Hat” Hats.

We ALWAYS have green eggs and ham for dinner.  There are also so many activities to print (and I have printed many of them).

Here are some more ideas, by book, to do with your kids:

Green Eggs and Ham

Eat Green Eggs and Ham snacks or meals

Make a list of green foods

Make a list of words that rhyme with favorite foods (Sam-Ham)

Wear Green

Make Egg Carton Creatures

Printables from Early Moments

Egg Spinning activity (one hardboiled and one fresh)

Upper/Lower case egg matching Game by Making Learning Fun

Horton Hears A Who

Make Cotton Candy Snack

Cut out elephant ears and attach to headband to be elephants; now walk like an elephant.

Have a sound activity.  Listen to different sounds through earmuffs, earplugs, etc.

Try to make as much noise as you all can.  What works best, pots and pans, instruments, or our voices?

Talk to your children about the meaning of, “a person’s a person no matter how small.”

Talk to your children about how each of us can make a difference.

Printables from Early Moments

Watch the Movie

Hop on Pop

Jump on bubble wrap (get it? hop on pop! ha ha)

Jump on a trampoline (or bed if you have one you will allow this), or just jump in different ways (hop on one foot, hop over things, jump high, jump far, etc).

Play with bubbles (pop)

Say words and every time the kids come up with a rhyme they get to pop a balloon.

Read the page about Mr. Brown and Mr. Black, then eat brown and black snacks (pretzels half dipped in chocolate, wheat bread with blackberry jam, graham crackers and chocolate frosting).

Hide pictures of puppies around the house.  Give each child a cup and they are to find as many pups as they can and put them in their cup (references to pup in cup in this book).

Watch this video of the book from game equarium.

Yertle the Turtle

Wear Green

Wear backpacks while crawling a preset path.

Make turtles out of a bowl you paint green and green paper for head, arms, legs and tail.

Make turtles out of a smooth round rock.

Have turtle races:  Tie shoes together with laces as long as you can.  Then kids can only take small steps during race.

See how many cups your children can stack without them falling over (or blocks, or whatever).

The Cat in the Hat

Juggle with different items; balls, blocks, fruit, etc.

Printables from Early Moments

Printables from PBS kids

Watch the Movie

Watch The Cat in the Hat marathon on pbs

Make Hat snacks with 3 red gummy lifesavers and a ritz cracker

Have a hat that you put items that rhyme into (mat-cat, mouse-house…obviously these would be my children’s toys as no house would fit in a hat).

Thing 1 and Thing 2 Pencils have been on my list since I first saw them at Skip To My Lou!!

Kraft Jr has these amazing Seuss Puppets.  Super easy, too!

Bartholomew and the Oobleck

Make Oobleck (slime)

Experiment with the Oobleck

The point of this list is to see how easy it is to come up with activities to go along with which ever Dr. Seuss books that you have! 

Monday I had asked for links to what other people are doing.  Here they are:

Please feel free to keep adding to my Dr. Seuss linky to share what you have done/are doing for this fun week!

Rebecca

My Top 10 Dr. Seuss Quotes

1.  Today you are You, that is truer than true.  There is no one alive who is Youer than You.
2.  You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.
3.  Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.
4.  Don’t give up. I believe in you all. A person’s a person no matter how small.
5.   Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind.
6.  Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
7.  I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!
8.  Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.
9.  I'm afraid sometimes you'll play lonely games too, games you can't win because you'll play against you.
10.  And as you partake of the world's bill of fare,that's darned good advice to follow. Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.  And be careful what you swallow.

Follow my tweets this week for 25 more of my favorite Dr. Seuss quotes!!

Rebecca

Read Across America Week-Dr. Seuss Fun!

This week is Read Across America Week.  I think it is such a fun week to celebrate.  The National Education Association’s Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss’ Birthday are on March 2.  Around here the school’s participate in Dr. Seuss week.  At my children’s school they have picked different activities to do each day that go along with different Dr. Seuss books.

Monday-Wear green for Green Eggs and Ham and Yertle the Turtle

Tuesday-Wear silly socks and 2 different shoes for the Foot Book and Fox in Socks

Wednesday-Carry books (Dr. Seuss) with you at all times

Thursday-Wear Red and a hat for The Cat in the Hat

Friday-Pajama Day to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ Sleep Book.

(We’re doing these activities at home, too!)

 

Here are a ton of other ideas to help you celebrate this week:

Green Eggs and Ham

Check out this post of mine to see how to make these 2 different kinds of green eggs.

 

Seussville is a fantastic site that can help you celebrate!  This site is a lot of fun.  It has information on Dr. Seuss, videos, games and activities, characters, news, and pages for educators and parents!  I love that you can sort through things based on activities or by book.  That way you can match the activities to the books you have!  Go here to download the 2011 NEA’s Read Across America activity booklet.

 

Check out PBS kids for The Cat in the Hat games, printables, videos and more.  Lots of wonderful interactive fun!

 

There is a super-cute blog that is called ObSeussed.  Her blog bio says “I’m ObSEUSSed with bringing children's books and characters to life through kid crafts and family fun.”  Make sure to check out the fantastic tabs across the top of her blog.  The first is Seuss Links where she has a linky party of fun Seuss ideas.  The next one is Seuss Central where she has amazing links to all things Dr. Seuss.  Then, she’s got Seuss Style which has links to decorating Dr. Seuss style.  Next up are Seuss Celebrations; which are party and treat ideas.

 

She just had a fantastic idea to go with the book Hop on Pop!  You will love it!

 

I’d love to see how everyone else celebrates Dr. Seuss this way!  Leave a link here and I’ll be sure to check them out myself and post them here!

 

Rebecca

Happy Dr. Seuss Day-Quick and Easy Ideas to Celebrate With!

This is what will greet my children first thing in the morning (I’m writing this on Monday, March 1st).  I know they will thoroughly enjoy their swedish “Red Fish”!  We read a Dr. Seuss book for bedtime the night before, and we will read one every night until we run out (about 2 weeks worth for us).  Today is not just about Dr. Seuss (though we celebrate it today because it is his Birthday) but is also a fun week to focus on reading!  My parents were pivotal in giving me my love of reading.  I am hoping to instill the same love of reading in my children.   Things like celebrating Dr. Seuss Day, and Reading Week, will go a long way in pushing this hope. 

During the day, after we read Dr. Seuss’ “The Foot Book”, we will each be making our own “Foot Book”.  I guess the secret is out….that tracing of a foot above, is mine.  Yup!  My second toe is longer than my first toe!  But if you look at statues of the Greek Gods and Goddesses, their second toe is also longer than their first!  So, we can see of what cloth I was made from! ;)
Back to our “Foot Book”.  We will trace the kid’s feet for the shape of it.  They will cut out all of their own feet.  Then, I’m going to let them decide what to fill their “Foot Book” in with.  Mine has the words Right and Left on the appropriate feet pages.  Then, I have some info about my feet (stuff like my longer toe info, some pages I colored my toe nails, when I got my first pedicure…which was just last year, how I am a foot-a-phobe…which means I do NOT like feet, etc).  For their books I’m going to suggest maybe words that rhyme with foot, feet, toe, shoe, sock, or brainstorming other words that have to do with their foot.

Next up will be making a hat like “The Cat In The Hat”.  I just took strips of white paper (1 inch tall) and stapled them together the size of my head.  Then for the front “hat” part I took the rest of the white paper and added red stripes to it that were 2 inches tall.  I rounded the top corners to look more like in the books.

I know that my kids will love making these after reading the books.

I have downloaded lots of other Dr. Seuss things like dot to dots, questionairres, matching games, word searches, coloring pages, fill in the blanks, and mazes that all coordinate with Dr. Seuss books.  We will be eating green scrambled eggs and ham.  Last year I made green jello eggs which are super fun too, especially if colored food is not your thing!
I hope these ideas give you some quick ideas that you can whip up yourself and celebrate Dr. Seuss Day.  Or you can use them this whole week for Reading Week, or at least focus on reading this week!

Rebecca

I am linking up to the following fun parties; A Soft Place To Land, The DIY Show Off, Lucky Star Lane, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Keeping It Simple, The Girl Creative, Tip Junkie, Todays Creative Blog,

I Do Not Like Green Eggs And Ham-Dr. Seuss Week

My daughters are having Dr. Seuss week at school this week. Today was Green Eggs and Ham Day. They get to dress up each day, today they went all dressed in green. Oh I love these kinds of weeks! So, for dinner I made them hardboiled eggs that I dyed green. You could do this 2 ways. The first would be to add the food coloring to the water that you are going to dye the eggs in. I would also add vinegar to the water. Then, you would want to crack the eggs all over. Everywhere they are cracked will let the colored water in and color the egg on the inside. Of course you could also just dye the outside of the egg just like you would an Easter Egg. But I wanted the insides of my eggs to be green. So, I boiled them and then took the shells off of them. Then, I put them all into a cup with water and green food coloring. They just sat in there for about 10 minutes and voila! Green Eggs! Just like some of my other colored food, this may totally gross some people out. For my children it was perfect! They were surprised that the eggs tasted normal. Somehow they were expecting green eggs to have a different flavor I guess.
Next up, we also had Green Eggs for dessert. I made Green Jello Eggs. There is a much easier recipe if you have those plastic egg molds made by Jell-O! I, however, no longer have mine. I have no clue why I would not have them, as I make them every year at Easter. I move a lot. Each time I move I purge. I purge.A.Lot! That's all I can say. ;) So, I will tell you a secret of how to do them the old fashioned way. Actually, this is how my Mom would make them. All growing up we would have fantastic Jell-O desserts for Easter. My Mom makes this totally awesome layered Jell-O. We'll share that with you another time. This is about the Jell-O Eggs. My Mom would have a bed of green Jell-O with layered, colored Jell-O eggs on top. So cute, right!? She's so creative. Thanks to her, I knew how to make my Green Eggs, even without my beloved plastic egg molds! You will need Green Jell-O. Of course as I was making this today, I was thinking it might have been fun to do a blue and yellow together. But I decided against that as my kids didn't need a double batch of Jell-O!! You hollow out some regular eggs by blowing them out. Ok, this morning I've had comments that some people don't know how to blow eggs out. I actually saw Martha Stewart do it once and she had a tool to do this for you. I figure most of you wont have this tool. You will make holes on each end of the egg. Use a pin to do this (although, again there is a tool that can make these holes for you, but I'm guessing most people don't have that tool either...my Mom does! She has all the cool kitchen gadgets!). You are going to blow the insides of the egg out of the egg. To make the insides come out easier, stick your pin in and scramble it up a bit. This ruptures the yolk. Then turn the egg so the larger hole is down. Either blow into a bowl (so that you can use the egg) or blow into your sink to just send it down the drain! And you blow into the smaller hole which forces the insides out the larger hole. Make your hole on one side (I prefer this to be the pointier side) pretty big, I'd say about 1/2 an inch. Make sure to clean them out really well. Then, you tape up the smaller hole's side. Go overboard on the tape here. These eggs leak really easily and it is no fun cleaning spilled, set Jell-o out of your fridge!! Then, mix up your Jell-O as if you were making Jell-O Jigglers. Set your eggs back up in your egg carton as this is the best holder for them and you really don't want them spilling!
I've poured the Jell-O directly into the eggs before and it works alright. However, I do tend to shake and so I opted for a funnel. This worked like a charm except that it's hard to tell when they are full. I just went until they overflowed a bit. Then, put them in the fridge and let them set. Once they are set you just take the shells off of them, just like you would do with a normal hard-boiled egg. However, with these eggs don't use the forehead method of cracking the eggs. What?! You don't know the forehead method?! I don't know why but...I'm thinking this was my Dad's thing. Ya, I'll let my Dad take blame for this. When cracking your hard-boiled egg instead of hitting the egg on the counter or other hard surface...we use our forehead. Sometimes we use someone else's forehead (if we're annoyed with them or trying to annoy them, I guess). It's pretty cool in my house because I don't remember teaching this to my children, yet this is how they crack their eggs. The little ones will sometimes ask to crack theirs on my forehead instead of on their own forehead, and I happily oblige. The trick to this not hurting is to actually do it pretty hard. If you don't do it hard enough, you wont crack it and it just kind of feels like you just hit yourself on the forehead with something (I know. This is brain science here!). Oh, and do it on the side of the egg. The 2 end points will just hurt.
Once peeled they should look like this. Sometimes they look a lot better. However, I was a bit preoccupied at the stage of adding water and added too much. When this happens the eggs will still hold their shape, but they will just not have as smooth of a finish on them. When my Mom makes her layered jell-o eggs she would just fill each egg partially with one color, let them set, then add another layer. She usually made these with about 3 layers, if I'm remembering correctly (and to be honest, my memories of our families childhood seem to be wrong the most. I chalk that up to being the youngest. I'm happy with things the way I remember them though so I'm not too worried about it all. I discussed the butter thing with Anjeanette and she doesn't remember actually liking to lick the butter wrapper. She also doesn't remember doing it often. That is so not the way I remember it. Hmmmm. Oh well.). The real point here is green eggs for Dr. Seuss week. These 2 "recipes" are quick and easy, and my favorite-cheap! I had everything on hand (yes not all of us have every color of Jell-O on hand, but I do) too! I hope you all have fun with Dr. Seuss week as well. We finished the evening off by reading Dr. Seuss books tonight. But since the kids are reading them at school, I'm wondering if that is overload....Nah, you can't ever go wrong with Dr. Seuss, right!?

Rebecca