Dr. Seuss

 

It was impossible to not have fun during our Dr. Seuss theme! We learned about the word "rhyme" and did different activities each day to practice rhyming. I also challenged myself to make most of the activities related to a Dr. Seuss book. Here are the other fun things we did:

Dramatic Play
This was a tough one to come up with, but I looked through some books and decided on One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and went with a fishing hole! I had magnetic fishing poles, with magnetic fish, plus I used foamie material to make 10 fish, numbered 1-10 with paper clips on them, so they could also be fished out. I was impressed how many kids fished them out, and lined them up in order (with no prompting!) Great number practice.
 
The second week, we got out the puppets and puppet theater.

Blocks
We built with Mega Blocks.

Art
Oobleck, inspired by the book, Bartholomew and the Ooblick. Ooblick is one of my favorite sensory play items, and it's just simply water and cornstarch! It's known as a "non-Newtonian goop," at least that was the term I learned in college, because it defies Newton's Laws by acting as a solid and liquid at the same time. It's seriously fun, even for adults, and I recommend trying it at home (and preparing for a mess)! You squeeze it and it turns hard and you can break it, then, within seconds, it's runny and drippy. So fun!
 
Truffula trees, inspired by the book The Lorax. I had a variety of collage items that reminded me of the trees in the book (pom pom balls, feathers, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks) plus glue, and I let them go wild! Keeping art open-ended, I didn't tell them to make truffula trees, but some of them did ask about the materials and the book there, and I told them the materials reminded me of the trees. We had some beautiful art projects!
 
 Sweetened condensed milk painting, just because it's colorful and fun! It was a sticky hit, and we had lots of beautiful art. This is one of the projects you need to take a picture of, because you can onlyu enjoy it for a week before the milk starts to go bad and you've gotta throw it out.

ABC noodle collages with the book, Dr. Seuss' ABCs. They loved pouring on lots of glue and noodles! Great letter review too.

Small Manips
Dr. Seuss hat matching game from here

Rhyme puzzles

ABC magnet letters

Horton the Elephant counting links to go with Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg


 

Snack
Snack time was fun, and I was so proud of myself for doing a themed snack each day!

We used goldfish cracker counting mats from here, and practiced counting our goldfish crackers before we ate them, and also read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

We read Ten Apples Up On Top, one of the favorite books they ask to read over and over, and I gave them each a styrofoam cup with a bamboo skewer in it, and they had to stack 10 apple pieces up on top. It was a great math and counting activity, plus good fine motor practice too.

We made green eggs and ham (the kids each got to crack one egg, they loved it), and we added blue food color to make the yellow eggs turn green. Great science! While they waited for them to cook, they watched the video of Green Eggs and Ham on youtube, since no one had the book to check out or buy during Dr. Seuss' birthday week! They were delicious!

We made Cat in the Hat kabobs, to practice making patterns and more fine motor skills. They put bananas and strawberries on bamboo skewers to make the hats. They were yummy!

Large Group
Day 1 , we read The Cat in the Hat, listening for rhyming words, and then we made our own paper plate hats by coloring red stripes in a pattern.

Day 2, we read The Lorax, then practiced more rhyming words. They each got a Lorax mustache, and I read pairings of words. If they rhymed, they held up their mustache, if not, they kept them down. We got a cute class pic too!

Day 3, we read Horton Hears a Who, and then used pom-pom clovers to sort and graph. They asked to have these "clovers" back out to play the next few days too.

Day 4, we read The Foot Book, and practiced measuring by using paper feet. They did awesome!

Small Group
  Our mom helpers helped the kids rhyme by using ABC magnets to make a 3-letter word, then changing the first letter to make a new word that rhymes.

Our mom helpers played a Cat in the Hat rhyming memory game I found here.

I helped the kids work on their number books.