Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

I am so excited for this week because it is my favorite!!  I love Dr. Seuss books and I love watching my 1st graders discover his books for the first time.
Every year that I plan for this celebration I try to make it better than the year before.  I'm including a schedule of events for our "Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss" week this week.

Monday- We have a "kick off" in our school's auditorium.  All the classes involved with the week come together first thing in the morning.  I give them a quick outline of the events of the week and tell them about their Accelerated Reader test goals for the week.  I've created a chart to show them what their class did the year before to help get them motivated.  The challenge is to meet the 500 AR tests taken and passed (80% or better) during this week.  The students tally mark their passed tests on the chart.  On Friday, if the challenge is met, they get to pop 500 balloons.  One of the balloons will have the name "Dr. Seuss" in it and will be the winner.  That student gets a prize.

Tuesday- I let my students bring their clean and appropriate pajamas to school to change into for our Accelerated Reading morning.  They bring their blankets and pillow and relax around the classroom with their favorite book.  They spend the morning (about 2 hours) reading books and taking AR tests. 

That evening we open up our computer lab and library and allow parents and their child to come in and read together for a couple of hours.  The students get to take AR tests.  Awards for most 100% on tests are given.  Awards are always books, notebooks, and pencils.  In the picture you see some Dr. Seuss decorations (when I took the picture all the "books" hanging from the ceiling were facing the other way and I just noticed) to help make our auditorium seem more like Seussville. 

Wednesday-Students make their own personalized book mark in celebration of 
the week.  We also have a book giveaway.  Each student gets a free book!  I had each grade separated on the table to help the kids when they came to come get their book.  They were all so excited.

 

Thursday- Classes who wish to participate rotate students.  Each classroom has a different reading activity that has something to do with a book by Dr. Seuss.  The students who come into my classroom will make a Trufula tree.  I use green pipe cleaners and colorful pom poms as the top.  I get these items at Hobby Lobby.

Friday- This day is our HUGE day of celebration!  All the participating classrooms come into our auditorium and rotate through different stations.  Station include:  eating green eggs and ham, pin the egg on the plate, making a red or blue fish, voting for your favorite Dr. Seuss book, making a Seuss treat, and making a Seuss hat.  At the end of the day I serve the cupcakes I've made and we have our balloon pop.

This is one of the things that will be done at a station with the students on Friday.  I made one so I'd know if my idea made sense.  I haven't seen this anywhere else, but I'm sure I am NOT the first person to think of it.

 

This is the same fish.  One side is red and the other is blue.  That is just tissue paper in the middle.

 

Here are some pictures of the auditorium the night before the students participated in the day's events.

 

This is the station where they made the "Red fish, Blue fish."  I had all the materials and an example already laid out for the volunteers.

The students played "Pin the Eggs on the Plate" and had so much fun that this station was the loudest all morning.  It was great!

Here the students voted for their favorite Dr. Seuss book (they chose from 6) and created a class graph.

 

The students always do an estimate jar filled with Goldfish Crackers.  There were 200 of them in this water bottle and 1 student got it right on the mark. 

This is the station where they made "Seuss Sweets" and ate them up!  Can you believe I forgot to get a picture of them before they ate them up???  The students also play Seuss Tic Tac Toe at this station too.  I have them do this while they wait their turn. Again, I had all materials out and ready for the volunteers.

 

Here are some pictures of the cupcakes I made for the kids to celebrate the day.  They were a hit.


This is the "Green Egg" cupcake.  I dipped a vanilla wafer in white chocolate and added a green M&M on top.

 

 

These are my "Hat" cupcakes.  I had seen this on Pinterest in many different forms, but I put a twist to it. Instead of using an Oreo cookie I used a dipped vanilla wafer.  Instead of using a marshmallow for the white I just used a dab of white icing.  For the red I used gummy lifesavers.

 

 

 

And here are my "Trufula Tree" cupcakes.  The trunks are sugar coated licorice sticks and cotton candy for the tufts.  These were a big hit because the majority of our students are just in love with the book "The Lorax."

 

 

Here are the pictures of the thank you "hat" I gave to each volunteer.  I went to the Dollar Tree and bought the glasses, painted the bottoms, and filled the glass with white and red hard candy.