Sunday, March 3, 2013

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Sorry that I haven't made any posts recently.  My life has been hectic lately.  I bought a house, my father-in-law was in the hospital for months, and I lost my nephew.  I am hoping things are going to start settling down a little and I will have more time to catch up on my posts.

On a happier note, we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday all week.  We focused on one book each day of the week.  On Monday, we watch Justin Bieber reading "The Cat in the Hat" book.  The students loved it.  After the story, we talked about expanding sentences by adding details like where/when at the end.  The students create these cute hats.  They had to write "I love to read ____." on each stripe.  For the hats, I printed the template on red construction paper and gave the students white strips to add.  Get the template here.

On Tuesday, I read one of my favorite books "The Foot Book" to the students.  This book is great for teaching or reviewing antonyms.  After the story, I had the students brainstorm a list of antonyms.  I was very impressed with their vocabulary.  One students said, "God and mortal, because God is immortal and we are mortals!"  Then, each student chose one of the pair of antonyms and made the feet below.  Pick up the template here from "The Art of Teaching" blog.


On Wednesday, I read "The Lorax" to the students.  This book is great for talking about the environment, recycling, or Earth Day.  After the story, we talked about how to take care of the environment.  Then, the students made a cute Lorax.  They were all being silly playing with the mustaches, so I set up a photo booth really quick.  While they were finishing their work, I took photos of them wearing the mustache with our stuffed Lorax.  I printed the template found here on orange and yellow construction paper.  The students cut it out and wrote about how they would stop the Once-ler from cutting down the Truffula trees. 

On Thursday, I read "Oh, the Places You'll Go" to the students.  As we were reading, we discussed how there are a lot of choices to make in life and sometimes you have to choose between two different paths.  We talked about going down the right path or making our own path.  We also talked about how life is full of ups and downs.  After the book, we talked about making goals for the future.  The students got a paper with arrows.  They wrote one goal on each arrow: one for first grade, one for high school, one for college, and one for life.  Then, they wrote about them.


On Friday, I read "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" to the students.  We discussed the rhyming words on each page and we came up with more words that rhymed with the words on the page.  Then, we brainstormed words that rhyme with pocket, both real and make believe words. After that, we played beat the teacher.  I gave each of the students a sheet and they wrote the word "all" in the box.  I timed us for two minutes and we all wrote down as many words as we could.  We went around the room and said all of our words and added all the students' words together to see if they found more than I did.  And of course, they won!  Then, they made creatures and wrote "There's a ___ in my pocket and his name is ___ ."  Click here to get a copy of Beat the Teacher