Dr Seuss Week!!!
This is the last week of “Finish up Zachary’s 1st Grade Curriculum!” We did all reading this week (the bane of Zachary’s existence apparently).
But, since I’m all about making learning fun, we did all sorts of awesome Dr. Seuss stuff. (We threw in some Eastman too) I was all sorts of happy because it meant I got to read some of my favorite books from my childhood.
Green Eggs and Ham
Its basically impossible to do Dr. Seuss week without doing lots of Green Eggs and Ham stuff.
Fun bit of Trivia: Dr Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a BET! His friend (and the co-founder of random house) bet him that he couldn’t write a fun children’s book with 50 unique words. He won, and it became one of his most successful works, but his friend never paid up.
The first thing we did was ACTUAL Green eggs and ham (with one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish on the side)
I declined from dying the ham green, but Zachary didn’t mind.
He still got to eat his sandwich, so he was happy.
On Wednesday, we had a playdate with another home-schooling family, so we made Green Eggs and Ham Cookies to take with us to share.
First we made Sugar cookies From “Two Sisters Crafting” blog. They were awesome. I halved the recipe, and then froze half of what we made for another time.
Then we made some regular glaze, drizzled it on so it would be blobby-shaped like a fried egg, and had Zachary add Green m&m’s for the green yolks.
He was pretty Happy with his role in life.
We had had fun picking out all the green m&m’s and saving them for the cookies. It was a great sorting activity for my 2 year old. She’s just started learning her colors and was having fun eating the ones that didn’t qualify for the cookies.
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
This one didn’t have a lot of activities for it, BUT we did get to eat goldfish. Did you know that Goldfish Crackers come in colors now? I think we should petition them to do BLUE goldfish in that package instead of Green.
This was Zachary’s FAVORITE book when he was about 2. I read it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT before bedtime. It got to the point that I can recite most of the poems by heart.
Look what we found
In the Park
In the Dark
We will Take Him Home
We Will Call Him Clark
He will live at our House
He will Grow and Grow
Will our Mother like this
We Don’t Know
Yup, BY MEMORY!!! I’m that good! And I can tell you that that particular poem is 3 pages from the end. I was always very happy to get to that poem. It meant that I would be able to go spend time with the husband.
And Now, Goodnight, Its Time to Sleep, So we will sleep with our Pet Zeep. Today is gone, today was fun Tomorrow is another one. Everyday From Here to There, Funny Things are Everywhere!
(also recited by memory…. I read that book a lot)
The Bippolo Seed
This one isn’t one of his most popular stories, BUT I LIKE IT, So i read it to Zachary. Its about a Duck who finds a Bippolo seed that is supposed to grow a wish out of the ground. Well, he starts listening to a Cat (not the cat in the Hat) who tells him that he should ask for more than he’s asking. Then they go all crazy thinking of all the things they could wish for to become the richest duck and cat in the world and lose the seed. Poor Duck, Poor Cat. Its sad, but that’s what happens when you get too greedy.
When we’d read this, We planted some regular flour seeds in a lovely green pot. Planting Seeds would also work for THE LORAX.
The Cat in the Hat
We read the Cat in the Hat on our Last Day of Seussian fun. Then we did a Full running sweep of the whole house and Zachary’s room so EVERYTHING was CLEANED UP! We didn’t have an awesome machine like the Cat’s, but it did inspire next week’s theme (Robots).
After that, we made Dr. Seuss PIZZA!
This one even got the husband involved.
Add in some Ranch Dressing and it was Kid Approved!
AND From LAST YEAR’s Cat in the Hat Day (Dr. Seuss’s Birthday) A Cat in the Hat HAT
They’ve GROWN UP SO MUCH!!!!
BOOKS!
It would be impossible to do Dr. Seuss Week without a HUGE List of Books…. So here we go. I’ll start with The Dr. Seuss Books, and move on to Eastman.
This is one of the lesser known Dr. Seuss books (and its ironically titled “and other lost stories). But its still awesome. It has the Dr. Seuss “Lets give them a moral lesson along with some fun nonsense” greatness.
Recently re-popularized by the movie (that added some interesting backstory for the guy who is being told the story of the Lorax, making it a story within a story within a story). This is a great book for Earth Day and for basically any time you want your kids to think about their actions and how they could affect others.
That first page says “Go Slowly, This book is Dangerous” THEY AREN”T KIDDING!!!! Seriously, I tripped all over my tongue trying to read this book, and I am normally really good at reading books out loud. Especially Dr. Seuss type books that have good cadence.
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
CLASSIC That’s all I have to say about this one!
Ditto
Great book for the Cornstarch and Water experiment. Unfortunately, my kids HATE getting their hands messy.
ON TO EASTMAN
This was MY favorite book when I was about 4. I had just started to read and I was all sorts of excited about it. Eastman is great for early and beginning readers.
Not much to say about this. Its great for Beginning readers, very repetitive, but still fun (and it has the bird from Are You My Mother in it, so I was happy).
AND LAST BUT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST
Zachary Liked reading this one so much, that when we found a copy at our “Friends of the Library” Bookstore, we HAD to get it. It is a great copy too, so I was pretty happy with the purchase.
What are YOUR favorite Dr. Seuss Books? are there any I missed that I should totally read?