Dr. Seuss

Cat in the Hat Math Activities for Preschool

2013

Happy Read Across America Day!!! And an early Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!

We have been celebrating reading and Dr. Seuss in our family since my oldest was just a toddler. When I was a teacher some of my favorite and most meaningful experiences occurred on or in preparation of Dr. Seuss’ birthday and I wanted to continue the excitement and love for reading with my own children.

$Cat in the Hat Math Activities for Preschool$

We have been busy playing, reading, and learning with Dr. Seuss books at our house over the last few weeks. One of our favorites was the preschool math activities we did with The Cat in the Hat .

Cat in the Hat Measurement Activity

We read the story and then got out our Cat in the Hat hats. The kids used them to measure how many hats tall different objects were.

Dr. Seuss Measurement Activity

Non-standard measurement is a great way for kids to practice counting, learn to estimate, and introduce children to the concepts of length, width and height.

$Dr. Seuss Non Standard Measurement Math Activity$

And lots of hands-on fun!

$Cat in the Hat Math$

After we were done measuring, we took a good look at the hats and discovered that the stripes had a pattern! My 7 year old explained to the others that the stripes are an ABAB pattern. The kids practiced saying ABAB as they touched the red and white stripes and then we were ready to go on a Hat Pattern Hunt!

$Preschool Math Pattern Activity$ We went around the house and looked for things that also had an ABAB or, as we liked to call it, the Cat in the Hat pattern. The kids had lots of fun finding patterns and every time they found one we would check the hat cut out to verify that it was an ABAB pattern. Since doing this they have found Cat in the Hat patterns everywhere we go!

Join in the fun with Read Across America!

I love that Dr. Seuss has inspired so many to read and am so thankful that I have had the opportunity to experience it first hand. I had never really loved his book, There’s a Wocket in My Pocket!, until one of my high school students, who had struggled with reading his whole life, rapped it for the elementary school kids at their school celebration!

This big, cool high schooler spent days practicing and totally rocked his performance! That day not only fostered a love of reading in the little kids who were attending, it made him and the other kids in my class love and value reading as well. Needless to say There’s a Wocket in My Pocket! now has a very special place in my heart!

For more fun with The Cat in the Hat check out:

Green Eggs and Ham Dr. Seuss Activities

2013

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We are still counting down the days until Dr. Seuss’ birthday with lots of fun Dr. Seuss books and activities! The last couple of days we have been reading and playing with Green Eggs and Ham and have all been walking around the house quoting Sam-I-am!

My kids love book extension activities that are simple and can be done again and again so the Green Eggs and Ham games I came up with were a big hit! We played a Green Egg Relay game and made some Green Egg Word Chunk Spinners.

My preschoolers worked on developing their motor skills during the Green Egg Relay game. I filled a plastic Easter egg with rice and the kids practiced carrying it across the room on a soup spoon. When they got to the person on the other side they had to transfer it from their spoon to the other spoon.

Then we turned some of the rhyming words in the story into a word chunk game! I wrote some of the word chunks that my 4 year old is practicing on the bottom of the plastic egg and consonants on the top half. He could then spin the egg parts around to form and read new words. These are great for entertaining kids in the car too!

I have really enjoyed looking through all of the Dr. Seuss Virtual Book Club for Kids posts that have been linked up so far and found some really cool Green Eggs and Ham ones.

Check them out:

Linking to:

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Filed Under: Reading Tagged With: Dr. Seuss, Dr. Seuss activities, Dr. Seuss games, Green Eggs and Ham, preschool, reading activities, reading games, reading practice, Virtual Book Club for Kids

Lorax Themed Food

2012

Dr. Seuss Pizzas!

2012

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On Friday, AKA Dr. Seuss’s bday, we surprised the kids by taking them to see The Lorax after school! Woo hoo! They were super excited and we all loved it. I even cried at the end. Definitely a must-see!

Anyway, on the way home the kids came up with the idea of making a Dr. Seuss pizza for dinner like we did last year. But they couldn’t agree on which Dr. Seuss character to make…so they decided everyone should make their own!

It was tons of fun. And led to the most creative dinner making I have ever seen. I highly recommend trying this with some of your favorite book characters. They came up with pizza details I never would have such, as Sally’s banana pepper bow and spinach hair. I loved watching pizza creation process and was amazed by how much thought and trial and error went into each pizza. Not to mention that this project was also delicious. This just may be the book report of the future!

Linking to:

Filed Under: Food, Learning Activities Tagged With: cooking, Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham, kindergarten, make your own pizzas, One Fish Two FIsh Red Fish Blue Fish, preschool, school age, The Cat in the Hat. The Lorax

Cat in the Hat Ice Cream

2012

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Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Looking for a fun treat to celebrate the day? Try our Cat in the Hat mini-ice cream sundaes!

Ingredients:

kid size ice cream cones (the little baby ones)
strawberry fruit strips
vanilla frozen yogurt or ice cream
small piece of a red licorice whip
white M&Ms or mini-marshmallows

Procedure:

Use a small scoop to create round balls of ice cream. Place in a muffin tin and put in the freezer for a couple hours until the scoops are nice and firm.
Cut thin strips of the strawberry fruit strips and wrap them around the ice cream cone.
Dot the M&Ms or marshmallows (that have been cut in half) with icing or peanut butter or whatever you have around.
Cut little pieces of licorice whip for the mouth.
Place the scoops on plates and put it all together!

The perfect snack to eat while listening to The Cat in the Hat!

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Filed Under: Birthday Parties, Crafts, Food, Reading Tagged With: candy, cooking, Dr. Seuss, kids crafts, kindergarten, preschool, school age, snack, The Cat in the Hat

Playing with Oobleck!

2012

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Today we made oobleck to go along with the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss [Random House, 1949]. If you’ve never made it before it’s a crazy substance that acts as solid or a liquid depending on the amount of force applied to it. It’s a huge mess and full of learning potential – a definite hit with kids!

How to Make Oobleck:

Ingredients: Cornstarch, water, and food coloring if you would like to make it the greenish color it is in the story

1. Prepare an area that can get messy. And I mean really messy! Outdoors is best, but if that won’t work you’ll definitely want to cover all of the surfaces that will be near you, especially the floors.

2. Dump 4 cups of cornstarch into a large bowl.

3. Slowly add 3 cups of water (with the green food coloring if desired.)

4. Stop when the consistency of the oobleck is such that it turns into a ball when you roll it in your hands and a liquid went you let it slip through your fingers.

5. Explore the properties and texture of the oobleck!

In the story King Derwin of Didd becomes bored with the plain old snow, rain, and fog and wants his magicians to create a new form of green, gooey precipitation called oobleck. His pageboy, Bartholomew, warns him this isn’t a good idea, but King Derwin doesn’t listen and ends up having to apologize in the end. While playing with the homemade oobleck kids get to see just how bad of an idea it really was.

Everyone was very intrigued by this curious substance and couldn’t wait to touch it. Although as you can see my 2 year old was a little disturbed by what it felt like when it was her turn! The kids alternated between rolling it into a solid and letting it slip through their fingers as a liquid. They noticed right away that even though the oobleck fell onto the deck as a liquid it quickly hardened once it made contact with the surface. They also discovered it was very hard to throw into the air since it would immediately liquify, but when you threw it against the side of the shed all of the liquid would turn into little pieces with a bang!

We played and played until the oobleck was everywhere and the cornstarch was gone. Then we hosed everyone and everything off – got to love these FL winters! They had a blast and I have a feeling we will probably be making some more this weekend.

We even had “oobleck” aka green pudding for our snack!

There is lots of fun to be had with oobleck. Grab some cornstarch and make some at your house!

Linking to:

Filed Under: Crafts, Food, Learning Activities, Uncategorized Tagged With: Bartholomew and the Oobleck, cooking, Dr. Seuss, kindergarten, oobleck, preschool, recipes, school age, science

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Lunch

2012

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Dr. Seuss One Fish Two Fish sandwich painting

One of our favorite activities is painting bread or toast. It’s a fun and non-sugary way to celebrate many holidays, including Dr. Seuss day!

Here’s what you need:

1. Bread, cut into a fun shape if desired. Today I used our trusty kitchen shears to cut out fish shapes.

2. Milk with 1 drop of food coloring. I recommend all natural food coloring (they have great stuff at Whole Foods), but whatever you are comfortable with works.

3. Paint brushes that you ONLY use for food. For obvious reasons.

Then let them paint! Make sure they don’t saturate any area too much or it will stay mushy.

Then toast the bread in the oven or toaster oven (a regular toaster won’t work) and serve!

This would also be fun serve with colored Goldfish which you could then use for math pattern practice like we did last weekend.

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Filed Under: Crafts, Food, Learning Activities Tagged With: bread painting, cooking, crafts, Dr. Seuss, Dr. Seuss food, kids crafts, kids recipes, kindergarten, One Fish Two FIsh Red Fish Blue Fish, preschool, recipes, school age

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street Dr. Seuss Craft

2012

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We are on a Seuss kick this week! And the countdown is on to his birthday on Friday and the opening of The Lorax! Today we had some friends over and had some fun with Dr. Seuss’ And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street [Random House, 1967].

We read the story and used paint and paper towel rolls to create Imagination Spy Scopes. In the story Marco imagines all sorts of crazy sights as he walks home from school.

When our Imagination Spy Scopes were dry we took them outside to see what kind of exciting things we could imagine were on our street.

They “saw” many spectacular sights such as candy people, a sleeping snake, dragons and animals that had escaped from the zoo!

How have you used books to activate imaginations and inspire pretend play?

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Filed Under: Crafts, Learning Activities, Reading Tagged With: And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, crafts, Dr. Seuss, imagination spy scope, kids crafts, kindergarten, pretend play, school age

The Dr. Seuss Cat Cam App!

2012

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As promised here’s the scoop on another fun Dr. Seuss app for iPhone and iPad! This one is the Cat Cam or Dr. Seuss Camera – The Cat in the Hat edition. It’s basically Cat in the Hat themed photo cards you can add your own pictures into.

To use it you open the app and choose a card. Then you use the camera to take a photo, adjust the picture, and voila, it’s ready to be saved to your phone or emailed to everyone you know! It’s super easy and very addicting. I taught my 6 year old how to use it and she spent the rest of her “Rest Time” photographing everything in her room!

(Not only is it fun, but it adds interest to all of the photos your kids take of random objects in Target while you are shopping!)

The app is also from Oceanhouse Media and currently can be downloaded from iTunes for $1.99. They have a Happy Birthday Edition of the Dr. Seuss Cam that is FREE too! Which I, of course, also downloaded. Look for lots of Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss Cam pics on my Facebook page on March 2nd (Dr. Seuss’ birthday!)

No one has money to waste so I am sure you are wondering, “Why should I download the Cat Cam app when the Happy Birthday one is free?” Answer: Because it really is just that much fun! And, really, how many birthday themed photos do you need? Both are definitely necessary!

If you think the Cat Cam is cool be sure to check out my post about the free Dr. Seuss Band app!

Filed Under: Birthday Parties, Learning Activities Tagged With: Dr. Seuss, iPhone/iPad apps, kindergarten, preschool

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Activities

2012

12 Comments

I love Dr. Seuss! He is the rock star of the reading world. I could go on and on and on. (And I’m sure I will over the next few weeks!) In our house, and in my classroom when I was teaching, as soon as Valentine’s Day is over the countdown is on – to his birthday, of course!

In other online circles I am the Primary School Topic Editor at Suite101.com where I write about teaching strategies and lesson plans and fun stuff like that. Right now I am in the middle of a lesson for The Lorax [Random House, 1971] and have all things Seuss on the brain. (I’ve even been speaking in rhyme…)

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss [Random House, 1960]

Anyway, since I have Seuss on my mind I thought I’d share some of my favorite One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish activities with you all!

(FYI, The photo above is an affiliate link.)

Red Fish Blue Fish Math Patterns

So fun for preschool and kindergarteners! Use colored Goldfish crackers to teach kids about ABAB, AAB, ABB, and ABC math patterns. Demonstrate each pattern and have the kids continue it. The cool thing about doing this activity at home is that everyone can play. My 2 year old followed along with us while we were making the patterns together. Then, when the big kids were creating their own patterns, she sorted her fish into color piles.

Red Fish Blue Fish Jell-O Bowls

Swedish fish in blue Jello-O is a classic Dr. Seuss treat. Easy to make and full of sugar – sure to be a hit with the kids! (Especially mine who are always complaining they don’t get as many treats as their friends!)

Anything I’m missing? Leave the link in the comments. I’d love to add it to my Dr. Seuss Day Pinterest board!

Filed Under: ABC Activities, Crafts, Food, Learning Activities, Math, Reading Tagged With: ABC activities, candy, cooking, crafts, Dr. Seuss, kids crafts, kindergarten, letter practice, letters, math patterns, One Fish Two FIsh Red Fish Blue Fish, preschool, reading games, school age, word games

Cat in the Hat Math Activities for Preschool

Green Eggs and Ham Dr. Seuss Activities

Check them out:

Linking to:

Lorax Themed Food

Dr. Seuss Pizzas!

Cat in the Hat Ice Cream

Playing with Oobleck!

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Lunch

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street Dr. Seuss Craft

The Dr. Seuss Cat Cam App!

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Activities

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