Dr. Seuss

We just couldn't pass up Dr. Seuss' birthday, and the chance to pull all my Dr. Seuss animals out of the cabinet! The kids were thrilled. They've been looking at them all year and were so excited to hold and cuddle them!

The definite highlight of this day were the tunnels. They had played with them outside a lot at the beginning of the year and were so excited to see that tents and tunnels had taken over the dramatic play and blocks area for the day. They were playing so well together, chasing and rescuing each other.

We then watched Green Eggs and Ham on youtube (because the slacker teacher realized Friday she didn't have the book when she thought she did-it belonged to my old school, not me...and it wasn't at the library). They loved it and each cuddled a Dr. Seuss book as they watched it. While they watched, our green eggs and ham cooked (which they had helped mix and loved watching the yellow turn to green from blue food color). They weren't too sure about eating it, but Sam I Am sat at our table and reminded them that his friend did not like green eggs and ham until he tried it. So, they all tried it, and they all liked them! They didn't all eat the ham, but they all loved the eggs. They even fed them to Sam. As they ate, they were joking about eating it with a goat, in a boat, and on a train, in the rain, and other lines from the book so we were able to review lots of rhyming words.

For large group, we read Fox in Socks and they tried to repeat lots of the silly tongue twisters with me. We talked about TONS of rhyming words too.
We then talked about the Cat in the Hat and patterns. They were so great at repeating the pattern on his hat with me (red, white) and they were great at telling me how to color my hat (red, then white) and they even extended the pattern I drew. But even after all that, and clear instructions they repeated back to color a pattern on their hats, all of their hats just turned out all red. Not one pattern. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that they didn't even try (only one realized she'd made a mistake by coloring 2 red stripes in a row, but after seeing everyone else's, she just scribbled it all red like theirs), but I then remembered their age. Repeating a pattern with me is on their level. Recognizing patterns, they can be expected to do. Extending them is already going a little beyond. Making a pattern is an end of Kindergarten skill and I sometimes forget that. I'll still keep teaching patterns, but they all really did do great on their preschool level.
We got some great pics in our hats, then enjoyed some spring weather by running around my front yard on actual grass! The back is still snowy, but I can feel spring coming.