March 2nd Week Part A

 Theodor Seuss Geisel March 4, 1904 - September 24, 1991.

March 11 - Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

This week we will be celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday. We started off by learning the first verse of a cute Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss song. Then we read his very first book "And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street." This book was rejected by 27 different publishers before one was willing to publish it. He wrote this book the same year he and his wife found out that they could not have children. (this information is from seussville.com) This was the humble beginning of my favorite author.

As an extension of the book we made our own spy glass, to see what we might see on our street. We decorated our spy glass with shape stamps and stickers. Our spy glass was a paper towel tube covered with decorated construction paper.

We continued our birthday celebration by singing Happy Birthday Dr. Suess and having a wonderful snack. Snack was Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins with carrot sticks and Pink Ink Drink (I used 2% milk,  strawberry yogurt, and added a couple drops of red food coloring to get a nice pink color).

After snack we took our spy glasses out side. As we were getting dressed for the chilly weather, one of the students said, "I hypothesis that I will see a road outside." The other one chimed in and said, "I hypothesize that I will see a sign." (I just love the way they have incorporated the word "hypothesis" into their daily language.) Not to be left out I made my own hypothesis, that I would see trees and grass. Dressed and ready we went out to see just what we could see on our street.We didn't see any of the wonderful things that Marco saw on his street.

Each of our hypothesises were correct, we did see a road, street signs, grass and trees. One student commented that we are getting to be very good scientists. We had to cut our outing short because the wind kicked up and started blowing the snow into our eyes.

Inside we learned how to do a new word station. We have been talking about word families, words that all have the same last name (letters) just like our families. This is the "at" family. There is a blank line in front so that we can add the first letter to the word, then we read the new family name. This was especially interesting to one student who has a baby (family member) at her house. She made the connection that her baby's first name is different from hers but they both have the same family name. We did the work station together, taking turns adding a new first letter and then reading the new word. They are excited to be able to do it on their own next time.

Next we read "Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?" Since both students are familiar with the book they were able to join in the reading. We made the sounds of each picture as we made our way through the book.

As a book extension we did a roll and graph activity. The die for the activity only had words which I thought might be hard for the students to follow, but once again they surprised me. After a couple of rolls with my help reading the words the students read the first letter of the word, looked at the picture, and then guessed what that word might be based on the sounds that each picture would make. They were very accurate with their guesses. Each student did their own chart and then we compared the different results with questions: Which one of yours has the most? The least? Does any have the same? etc.

Homework was to make a Dr. Seuss Cootie Catcher. I demonstrated how the cootie catcher works first on my fingers, but they couldn't see clearly what my fingers were doing. So we practiced without the cootie catcher, just made the finger movements and they got it. They were able to actually make the cootie catcher work. The second bit of homework was to read "Dr. Seuss's ABC" book. As the book was being read to them they were to a Gross Motor Challenge. They could create their own gross motor activity for each letter.