Bye Bye Dr. Seuss..Hello Leprechauns

So as promised here is the overview of our Dr. Seuss Read Across America week. Last week was also our Unit test week so it worked out perfectly and was a bit chaotic but fun.

Monday we kicked off the week with some Cat in the Hat. After reading the story, we rotated through 4 centers (completed on Wed.)
1. Matched rhyming words on hats to rhyming words on cats, then created their own rhyming hat.
2. Re-read Cat in the Hat and searched for different word families
3. Created a poem about a funny cat
4. Read The Cat in the Hat Returns and answered a reading response sheet.


We also picked our favorite Dr. Seuss characters and wrote why they were our favorite.

"Because he is mean" Hummm did I teach the wrong character traits at Christmas time??? Haha

Tuesday we celebrated Read Across America week with the whole school sitting in the hallway reading for 15 minutes. My firsties were so excited to be in the hall with all the other students, but they did an awesome job reading and were so behaved. After that, our first guest reader came in. Of course she read a Dr. Seuss book! Since this took up a big portion of our reading block, I decided to finish centers on Wednesday and we worked on our Unit test.  For writing, we read Horton Hatches the Egg and talked about Horton's character traits. Then we picked two traits and wrote short sentences about Horton. Glued it to an egg pattern, decorated the front, cut it crooked-ly down the middle, and wahlah a cute and educational craft; which we all know is the only way to sneak in fun crafts!

Wednesday I was out for a Thoughtful Classroom training all day so it was an easy breezy day in first grade. The superintendent was our guest reader this day and according to my sub, the kiddos were fantastic from the moment the super walked in the door to the moment she left!!!! How nice is that to hear! Then they finished centers from Monday. They also read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and talked about details and descriptions. Everyone decorated a fish and then wrote a detail paragraph about their fish.



"This is my fish her name is icarly and she is silly and cukoo but i love her."

How absolutely precious-----cukoo----I love it!!

To finish up Wednesday, they completed a fun Dr. Seuss activity packet courtesy of fabulous Rachelle over at What The Teacher Wants.

Thursday we had 2 guest readers!! We read the foot book and in groups came up with a new magic sneaker! (I had planned to use empty tissue boxes to make their sneakers, however the janitor threw all my tissue boxes away so we had to draw them.)  The sneaker that cooks, the sneaker that rocks and rolls, the surfing sneaker, the gaming sneaker....such creative ideas!

For writing we read There's A Wocket in MY Pocket and used Rachelle's pocket idea to create our own fun creatures!

We also read Yertle the Turtle and made the adorable turtles that Jodi created.

"He was a bad king because he made the poor turtles stand and build a throne"

Friday we finished up our Unit test and watched some Dr. Seuss clips from BrainPopJr. To wrap up our fun filled week, we read Oh, The Places You'll Go and wrote about where life would take us. Wait til you read what some of my imaginative firsties came up with...

He was so excited to tell me about his dreams of being the ticket man!

This sweet girl brings me about 3 pictures a week...so how'd I know she would pick an artist?

A rockstar? By going to college? How fun :)



Wheeeew we made it through the week! Don't get me wrong, I love me some Dr. Seuss but there is so much of it and so little time to do it all. Perhaps next year we will start it a week early?  And now we are off to have lots o' Leprechaun fun!