Dr. Seuss Week

Well, today was Read Across America Day, the day to celebrate the birthday of that illustrator and author, Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr Seuss.

• On Monday, students brought their favorite Dr. Seuss book  to read during reading.  
• Tuesday was crazy sock day and we read Fox in Socks.  
• Of course today was Wacky Wednesday and all the children dressed in their wackiest of outfits.  
• Tomorrow, Thursday students are to wear green for the Grinch, or their favorite Dr. Seuss shirt.  
• On Friday, we're all wearing hats and reading The Cat in the Hat.  

I made a set of QR Codes with twenty books by Dr. Seuss. 

I used these along with our iPads and a tub of about 10 classroom Dr. Seuss books to rotate around the students during independent reading time all week.  The kids have had a blast!

This morning our principal dressed up as the Cat in the Hat and two of her sidekicks helped out as Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Here are a few pictures as they entertained the whole first grade.

 

In math, we have been working so hard to learn all the combinations of numbers one to ten, so I came up with this activity to give them a bit of fun as they practiced.  I called it the Name and Number Cat Hat.  I decided to do this during math rotations so I could work with just four or five in a small group.

I wrote each student's name on a white strip that served as the rim or base of the hat.  I gave them a large sheet of black construction paper and a stack of red and white 2 in. x 6 in.  rectangles.  I took a bag of snap cubes and instructed the children to count the letters in their name, and then pull out that same number of snap cubes from a bag I showed them.

To make the number combinations, we started with all of their cubes on one side of the black paper and none on the other.  Then they recorded a number sentence on a red rectangle to begin, like 0 + 6 = 6.  Next, the students moved only one block to the other side of the paper, picked up a white rectangle and recorded that number sentence, like 1 + 5 = 6.  This continued until all the cubes were on the other side of the paper and all the number combinations were recorded.

It was a great day!