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Netters: Someone anonymously sent me a compiled list of Dr. Seuss/Read Across America ideas gleaned from the archives and requested me to post them with my "HIT." That would make my "HIT" too long but decided it would be worth reposting as an additional "HIT." I edited the list as there were several duplications. The Netter who sent it said that all the links had just been checked, so I trust they will work for you. The list is in no particular order and ideas for elementary and middle school are randomly included. Since (in many cases) it was impossible to determine where one article began and the next ended, I just edited them for clarity. All the contributor names had been removed previously so I am unable to give any credit directly. You can check the archives for the originals if you wish. Included with the ideas was this quote and it is very appropriate to share here: With apologies to Horton: I meant what I said And I said what I meant This group is terrific One hundred percent! ************************************** List of ideas from Archives: Here is a list of Dr. Seuss books followed by the food item mentioned in the book: Green Eggs and Ham - green eggs and ham, of course! Fox in Socks - "cheese trees" Scrambled Eggs Super - eggs One Fish, Two Fish... - fish Dr. Seuss' ABC - This is not mentioned in the book, but you could get cookie cutters and make cookies in the shapes of the letters of the alphabet. Oh the Thinks You Can Think - Schlopp Sundaes with cherries on top Dr. Seuss recipes from the Idaho Education Association: http://www.idahoea.org/professional/2003%20Dr%20Seuss%20Recipes.html The following link gives some ideas about decorations: http://entertaining.about.com/library/weekly/aa022803a.htm Since the theme for Read Across America is Dr. Seuss' book "Oh, the Places You'll Go," for the 7th and 8th grade classes we have guest speakers scheduled for March 2nd to talk about their career and how reading is important to them. This correlates with the 8th graders beginning to plan for their high school schedule. Students who serve as library aides are staying after school on Thursday to bake cakes in our home economics dept. kitchens & serving them to students and staff on Friday. 6-10 students will be involved. I have invited all classes to plan a shared reading activity during the day. We have announced our plans on our bulletin board by drawing a huge Cat in the Hat hat with the slogan: "Stop in the LRC for cake and a good book on Friday, March 2" & mini cake clip art. We have a loooong hallway display featuring a banner "Oh the Places You'll Go" "Read Across America" and posted the appreciation certificates from the NEA ReadAcross website along with the map logo enlarged. We have included posters from the Upstart "America Reads" promotion. On Friday, we plan to set tables with red tablecloths, the cakes and utensils with a Cat in the Hat Stuffed toy for a centerpiece & and nice framed photograph of Dr. Seuss. Of course "Oh the Places You'll Go" book will be on a book easel in the "place of honor." Other books displayed with be career related as our guidance counselor is currently instructing all students in our building to complete a book about themselves which includes a personality profile, and research from the occupational outlook handbook online and other sources. I have submitted a brief plan to the NEA link and have read some of the states' efforts on their site. I have also posted a few photos on my website which is in the very primitive stages thus far. You can view the photos @ http://www.clyde.k12.oh.us/jh/stbstult We will be having staff members read short selections on the closed circuit TV system each day of the week, so that those teachers who don't want to participate won't "have" to. (Most all of our activities are optional.) The school theme happens to be "Oh the Places You'll Go," so that will be the first reading. The art teacher will be using a puppet to read poetry, and Green Eggs and Ham will be Friday's reading while the cafeteria will be serving those very things during our breakfast program. We will have several pledge lists available for students and staff to sign promising to read (other than that which is school related) on Friday, March 2 through March 4. For those who want a more personal experience, there will be readers in the media center, and classes can sign up for those sessions. The art teacher will be teaching lessons on book illustration. The band class will perform Seussical march. Students and staff will be encouraged to dress like Seuss. Characters, and a representative of the Cat's will pass out a yellow award slip to those caught reading on March 2. Not really "special" but I am offering all teachers to come to their room for 10-15 minutes and read the class humorous poetry. In our district March 2 is read-a-loud day. This is organized by a group called the San Francisco School volunteers. They provide readers, authors, and others to come to classrooms to read. I am having an author, and several volunteers come. I have also recruited several teachers, paraprofessional staff and administrators to read. My thought is to show the kids as many adults reading as possible that day. In our Middle School, the kids are bringing something to read (book,magazine, newspaper, etc.) and something to eat, and we're reading and eating during our language arts classes. We are also doing a travelling story again this year (we tried it for the first time last year, and it was a lot of fun). Students sign up a few days before the event. I start the story by writing one stanza (Dr. Seuss style) and read it over the intercom. Then the students come into the library one at a time and add stanzas to the story. We had quite an amazing story last year! I'm looking forward to this one again. Finally, we're having reading buddies with our younger students (we're a K-8 building). The middle school students bring their favorite Seuss book from home and will be paired with a k - 3 student to read to them. The elementary school: 1. Served Green Eggs and Ham at breakfast 2. Made a huge paper cake and classes voted for favorite Dr. Seuss book and put it on one of the candles. 3. Trivia questions were used on the daily announcements During the months of January and February I have the 5th and 3rd graders read as many of the Dr. Seuss books as possible. The 5th graders will be responsible for writing the questions for the 3rd grade "Dr. Seuss Trivia Contest". On the library day closest to his birthday we celebrate: trivia contest, pictures to color, I have parents do face painting and they bring cupcakes to share. Go to www.nea.org and click on their Read Across America link. Thanks for all of the Oobleck recipes. Most of them were variations on the cornstarch and water combination, but there were some other combinations. I am sending examples of both: Oobleck (Note: this one seems incomplete but there is another recipe following) 1 - 8 ounce bottle of glue Fill empty bottle with water and stir. Mix in a bowl: Add green food coloring In another bowl stir in 1 cup of water and 1 1/2 teaspoons of borax powder Pour into glue mixture stirring constantly. *Here's the Oobleck recipe: Equal parts cornstarch and water (2 cups was suggested) Green food coloring Mix it up! ******************************************** *This is a more detailed description of Oobleck-making. This is really quite simple to make. Put cornstarch in a bowl. Then put water into a measuring cup (not as much as the cornstarch- maybe 1/4 as much). Add some green food coloring to the water. Then pour the green water into the cornstarch (slowly) and mix it with a spoon until the right consistency. The Oobleck should seem as though it is hardish i.e. when you put your spoon in (or in a primary teachers case - hand) it almost resists you (it is really quite firm). However, when you hold your hand still (or the spoon) it kind of oozes off in a runny stream. If you have ever made the roux for gravy with water and cornstarch you will realize the stages the cornstarch goes through. The amount of Oobleck dictates the amount of cornstarch needed. If you make it too runny, just add more cornstarch. SANDY'S READ ACROSS AMERICA SUBMISSION: http://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/schools/mashburn/activities/scrpseus s.htm AND TO PLAN YOUR NEXT EVENT, TRY . . . RESOURCES TO CELEBRATE READ ACROSS AMERICA: http://www.nea.org/readacross/resources/index.html Find certificates, book selections, and other resources to help you plan your own events. SUGGESTIONS FOR READ ACROSS AMERICA: http://www.nea.org/readacross/wb_read.html Teachers from all over the country have sent in their own event ideas, suggestions, and comments on this page. GRADE ONE READS ACROSS AMERICA: http://www.homestead.com/msross/readacross.html "Read Across America" is the special celebration with special activities for Dr. Seuss's Birthday. Go to www.ala.org go under "events" for all sorts of suggestions. We have been celebrating RAA for 4 years. I dress like the Cat in the Hat and read to the pre-K to 4th, other classes do a special Seussian D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read). Using the theme of green eggs & ham have a contest that the kids try to list as many foods that "go together" as possible -- like peanut butter & jelly. We also rewrote the announcements for March 2 in Seusseze -- you know, rhyming everything in silly ways. Today, our mayor declared next Friday, Read Across Laurel Day. Our students were photographed with her and an article will run in our local paper. Each of our teachers has chosen a book and decorated their door, bulletin boards, walls, etc. We will have guest readers come in throughout the day. We are having an assembly that morning and 2 of our second grade classes will act out "The Sneetches" while one of the teachers reads it out loud. Our coach will have games during the PE time that include: Green Eggs and Ham Spoon Race, Fox in Socks Sack Race, etc. One year I even made a 6 foot birthday cake out of chicken wire and paper. That year our cafeteria department served green eggs and ham for breakfast. I asked teachers to let me know the titles of their favorite books. I printed out pictures of the covers from amazon site (don't start yelling at me about copyright) and taped them on a poster board and gave each a number. I made a list of the teachers' names and put a blank beside each one. Students can come by the library and pick up an entry form and take a look at the pictures and either try to guess what book goes with what teacher or take the form around to the teachers and ask and fill in the number beside the name. (Some teachers will tell, some won't.) We are giving prizes on RAA Day for the most correct answers. We are a new school and the students are getting to meet some teachers, and vice versa, they did not know before in this way. Our elem. librarian is planning to have some parents come in to read, but she also devised this contest where she constructed a "Seuss" hat made of a clear cylinder and a felt brim and filled it with red and white M&Ms. The object is to guess how many M&Ms are in the hat. The kid who gets closest gets the candy for his/her class. I've been at schools who were visited by the Cat in the Hat (NJEA members). I'm having the kids all make hats and everyone in the building will wear a hat (a Cat in the Hat hat stapled onto a headband). I have guest speakers for every class. I made up packets for all of the teachers. I'll be doing my lessons around Dr. Seuss all week and I've put up bulletin boards all over the building. We are having a contest which incorporates "Library Lovers Month" with "Read Across America" at our library. By homeroom, every time a child reads a book and sends a paper with their name, homeroom, book title, author, and number of pages, they receive 25 mileage points. If they include a short summary and opinion of the book, they receive a bonus 50 mileage points. The lower grades (K-2) can submit a picture about the book in lieu of a written summary. The books must be on their grade/reading level. We are traveling from Ocean City, Maryland to Sacramento, California by way of US 50. We have placed maps for each grade in the library so they can see their progress. The contests runs the entire month of February and the winning class will be announced on March 1. The prize is an ice cream party and movie. Competition is fierce! One 4th grade class with 27 children read more than 80 chapter books in the first week and a half! The teachers are even participating. Besides dressing up like the Cat and serving birthday cake I was thinking of doing some kind of a matching game from the celebrity book pics on the NEA page with the stars kids had heard of and their favorite children's books. Another thing I'm planning is to use Styrofoam cups and draw red stripes on them and make a cardboard base for a hat rim. Have candies in them that the kids get after they do their celebrity match up and other quizzy things. I wanted to do an all school time for the reading oath that is also on the resource page of the NEA website. I'm going to blow up the favorite kid and teacher lists too so the kids can see them. Check out what my school is doing: http://www.lumberton.k12.nj.us then click on "F.L. Walther School" link and then on the read across America link. For Dr. Seuss' birthday this week, I read one of my old-time favorites, Bartholomew and the Oobleck to grades 1-3. Many of my students were not familiar with this one. When I read books with lots of dialogue, I change the voices for each of the characters - so for the royal magicians I used a really low, mystical, monotone voice. One student commented during the story: "Those guys sure have strange voices, don't they, Mrs.H?" It seems he was so immersed in the story, he didn't realize "I" was "those guys." Our pre first class made darling cat in the hat hats Friday. They took a cheap paper plate and cut the center out so it looked like a donut. Then they stuck white paper up through the center and glued it in a circle, then added a strip of red, then white, then red, then on the top put the cut out part of the paper plate for the top of the hat. I've been using a really nice game that can be purchased through Amazon.com. It is a board game, but I've revised into a combination "Who wants to be a millionaire, and several other games. I.E. they can phone a friend, or do 50/50 or poll the audience, if they don't know the answer. It is: Dr. Seuss Trivia Game in Collectible Tin Box by University Games Price: $19.99 University games has some other Dr. Seuss games available at their site: http://www.areyougame.com Type Dr. Seuss into the search box and see the many games available. We made Cat Hats for everyone provided by NJEA and Saturn car co. Guest readers from the local University visited in each classroom. Finley, the Riversharks baseball team mascot visited. Evening Family story time from 7 to 8 pm with three teachers reading books, a fake bonfire, and cookies and juice. Friday everyone came dressed in back shirt and pants. We added the hats we made, and red bow ties. Too cute! Assembly with University president reading Cat in the Hat while filmstrip illustrations were projected on a screen, class presentation of Chicken Soup with Rice and Junie B. Jones, and a visit from Captain Underpants and the Cat in the Hat. Then prizes were given out. Books and software from Scholastic book fair, and a few other items were wrapped and presented to fifteen kids whose names were drawn from our Cat box. Our weeklong celebration of reading ending with Read Across America on March 1 was great. Since this year's battle was to drum up interest for next year, I chose titles that many kids had read. I had a different set of questions for 5/6 and 7/8. That worked well. There was a battle in each grade level reading class then a battle within each grade and finally the Grand Battle on 3/1 was between grades. (7th grade won - a team of all boys!) I let kids choose their own teams of 3-5 students. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and are asking to do it again next year. Now that I have the teachers interested and students excited I will use the format that seems to be the norm. That is choosing a list of books of wide interest, genre and difficulty, advertise that list and choose questions from those books. I thought I'd make that my summer reading list. I'm also considering having a different list for 5/6 and 7/8 and getting a champion from each. Then kids can read the other list if they want to. It might motivate some kids to read twice as many books! I will definitely use the suggestion to matchbooks with audiotapes so everyone can participate. The biggest difficulty I ran into was determining who rang their bell first so we may go to the format of asking each team the same number of questions so we take out the speed factor (although the kids love that part!) We also had other activities going - during lunch we made Dr. Seuss hats one day; bookmark making was such a hit we did it several days and I think I'll make the materials available all the time and kids can do it as wanted. I provided construction paper, glue stick, markers, gel pens,colored pencils, bookmark templates, book mark ideas and the biggest hit was old calendars to cut things out of, esp. Mary Engebreit and Children's Book Council calendars have great things. Friday was dress as your favorite Dr. Seuss character Day. I was the Cat in the Hat which even my big (taller than me) 8th grade boys loved. Our first prize went to a girl whose mother had braided her hair into a sculpture like design. I had the cafeteria make Dr. Seuss treats which were oddly colored cupcakes. Kids got their name in a drawing for each Reading Counts test they passed or for each Book Recommendation they filled out. I displayed the recommendations all over the library with the book and the check out rate for those books has been amazing. We had a Reading Marathon all day Friday with guest readers - Superintendent, parents, local university athletes. I brought in a rocking chair and lamp and put good reads next to it. The kids love the rocking chair so I'll have to get one for all the time. We all had fun. Reading was celebrated and then we started this week off with a site visit from the Blue Ribbon school committee to determine if we are up to their standards. One year I had the A-Cat-amy awards. I had all grade levels vote for their favorite books. From the results I made categories and put the answer in an envelope. We had an assembly to announce the winners. Example: The nominees for the best picture book enjoyed by 1st graders the nominees are (I would list the top 3) open the envelope and announce the winner. I had different categories for each grade level. Series, subject etc. We sent a teddy bear with a Dr. Seuss hat to all the classrooms in turn. When the bear arrived, the class would stop what they're doing and read. All the elementary schools across the district do a stop everything and read for 15 minutes at the same time on a certain day. Everyday is an event school-wide...I did it a few years ago and can't remember all the days...connect activity to a book.each day... Monday- Tuesday- Wednesday- Wacky Wednesday (kids wear two different shoes or clothes backwards) Thursday-Crazy hat day--Cat in the Hat hats or a wacky hat. Friday- One, Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish--Everyone wears red or blue that day. We had a guess the red fish in container game..winners at each grade won a Dr. Seuss book. I have also gone to seussville website....printed some characters and made a memory /concentration match game... One year (while I was in an elementary library) I had the fifth grade students make up a spoof on the lines of Hooray for Diffendoofer Day. Then they illustrated and we put the pages in sequential order up the halls. When the week was over, I put the pages together into a book, and the kids could check it out if they wanted to. I also had younger students make posters on the subject - Why read? The posters decorated the school and library walls. In many classes we did author studies and learned about Theodore Geisel. One year I made a Seussish Turtle, the kids wrote a sentence about their favorite book, put the author and title of the book on it and then decorated it. The kids put them in shelf order and then we made a huge stack of them that went up the wall and across the ceiling of the library. The little ones (maybe first or second grade) made a circus train that was as big as we could make it (I think that we used bulletin board paper). They created their own characters, we cut them out and added them to the train. With one class we read And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street,and the kids created exaggerated tales and picture of what they had seen. Our summer reading program is Reading Across America. Perhaps some of the websites on my page will help. http://www.websterschools.org/classrooms/state_library/usa.html If you are an NEA member there is information available through NEA, if you contact your local or NJEA president there should be packets of information available. Students and teachers may bring in their favorite books to share. On Wednesday, March 1, 2000 - The Foot Book Day Students may wear two different shoes to school On Thursday, March 2, 2000 Dr. Seuss’s Birthday Students may wear funny hats to school. Students and staff in all four elementary schools will read silently from 10:15 a.m.-10:30 a.m. On Friday, March 3, 1999 - One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, BLUE Fish - Students may wear Wilson School T-shirts/sweat shirts or anything blue and white. Guess how many Swedish fish are in the jar? Winners get a Dr. Seuss book. (Note: Swedish fish are colorful and similar in texture to Gummi-worms, etc. Usually come in a cellophane bag or plastic container) Guest readers will visit the library. The following are some websites that the children can enjoy!!!! http://www.randomhouse.com/seussville/ http://www.seuss.org/seuss.home.html http://www.nea.org/readacross/games.html http://k12.albemarle.org/MurrayElem/White/Seuss/seuss.shtml Have a coffee time for the faculty and parents so they can come in and see the new books, etc. serve refreshments. displays books, resources. Have a poster contest about books throughout all grades. Ask teachers, staff, friends, and authors to come and judge for you. You might ask the local newspaper to come. Have students dress as their favorite book character and have a parade, etc. Using an opaque projector, make silhouettes of as many Dr. Seuss characters as possible. (Draw just the outline of the character. Cut it out on black paper and glue onto white poster board). Number them and post them all around the school. Have a contest to see who can identify the most. One year I organized a fund raising program for a fellow teacher battling Leukemia. Our elementary students raised $900 ! It was amazing and the kids loved it! I created a chart for reading minutes. The person the child asked to “sponsor them” could fill in the amount of money they wished to donate “per page.” Most people paid a penny or five cents. I made an enormous hat and placed it in the media center. Students brought down the collection bags each morning. After I counted the money I announced our running total. I had a thermometer in the front hallway to indicate how much money we raised. Rocking chairs in the hallway while students read silently (timed). The principal will_____________ (you fill in the blanks) if students read___________ minutes by the end of the week. (one year our principal shaved his head, then the next we rented a dunking machine, and another year kids who had read a certain # of minutes threw pies). ********************************************************************************** Joanne Ladewig, Library Media Technician (A.K.A. "Library Lady") Lawrence Elementary, GGUSD Garden Grove, California shatz1@earthlink.net " You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person." - - - comments are my own and may not reflect those of my employer- - - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=- All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. 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