Dr. Seuss Week

Like most kindergarten classes we celebrates everyone's favorite doctor's birthday with a week of Seuss~tastic activities. I snapped a few pictures of our fun to share with you.

We began our week with the Cat. For fun we made these cute hats ~ a simple project, but the kids loved them. As I was stapling the bands onto them I had to laugh at the fact that little kids like to wear paper hats. This little troop took the craft a step further ~ they used scraps to fashion cat-like bow ties! The little guys on the right made tabs to hook their ties onto their shirts, the two on the left started to glue their ties onto their shirts. :-) I quickly gave them a piece of tape...

In the background you can see our hallway craft tree bedecked with some pretty awesome directed drawings of the Cat. I found the directions on Forever in First. The kids were so surprised at how much like the Cat their pictures turned out (for the most part). They are all so cute (I'm particularly fond of the last one).

There's a Wocket in my pocket, and a ____ in my ____. After reading the book my Kinders worked in pairs to create their own silly combo. Can you read the first one? If you hang around little kids long enough I'm sure you know that the Zore is in their drawer. The last one is a great illustration of the sweet innocence of littles.

Finally, we made these cute little Hortons The faces are painted paper plates (who doesn't love a good paper plate project), and the ears & trunk are printed on card stock. (This pattern was given to me & it has no markings as to who made it. Is it yours? If so, please comment so you can get credit for this fun craftivity.) I always seem to be drawn to the less than perfect creations, which is why I took a pic of the little guy with VERY close-set eyes.

Well, that's another Wacky Week for the books!

Presidents' Day

Last week we actually had Presidents' Day off! For the past several years it has been used as a snow make-up day, but with the strange snowless winter we've had so far we got it off. But, we did have to go to school on the Friday that was to make a 4 day weekend due to fog in August! Oh well, a three day weekend was better than no holiday weekend.

We spent a lot of time talking about presidents last week. We use Guiding Readers (Deanna Jump & DeeDee Wills) and read Duck for President and Abe Lincoln's Hat. The kids really seemed to be very interested in learning about the presidents & had fun with the silliness of Duck.

The updated version of Guiding Readers includes craftivities and we made these cute Ducks. The look adorable hanging on our classroom clothesline.

Check out the close-ups of a couple Ducks. The little guy who made the one on the right might not have followed the instructions to the letter, but I do have to admit that that I think it's pretty funny!

After writing this post I created a Close Reading set to go with Duck for President. It includes everything you need to do 3+ readings of this fun book & is perfect for your Presidents' Day or Election Day studies. Click HERE to purchase. 

This Kinder was apparently  very impressed by Abe Lincoln. We had some coloring pages of Abraham Lincoln's face which he colored, cut out, and added a body made from scrap paper. He carried it around with him, took it home & brought it back to school all week. He told me that he even slept with it! Check out the second picture ~ he wrote facts about Abe & taped them on the back of the hat. Just like the real president, this paper president is carrying papers inside his tall black hat!

Coming up ~ next week is Dr. Seuss's birthday. We celebrate by reading lots of Seuss books and make some Cat in the Hat, Horton, and Things 1 and 2 themed crafts. I also like to put out some "inspired by Dr. S." activities in the literacy centers that week. I made a Funny Fish consonant blends literacy stations to use next week. It's fun for early March, but could be done any time of year!

Check it out HERE.

Dr. Seuss Week

We spent the past week reading Dr. Seuss books and making some fun crafts. Here is a quick post featuring three of the things we did.  (Thing 1, Thing 2, and "Thing 3")

 Things 1 & 2 made with blue hand prints.  

 Things 1 & 2 hats.

Horton Hears a Who

Five for Friday ~ Saturday

It's time to link up with Doodle Bugs for their great Five for Friday linky party. I didn't link up yesterday because Isabella spent the night. She loves to spend the night at Mimi & Papa's house! We had so much fun. Everything you hear about how wonderful grandchildren is true! They are the best.

We had a fun presentation this week about animals in winter.  A woman who works at a local county park came to our classroom to discuss what animals do in winter.  Even though it's March, this eternal winter we are experiencing made this presentation seem timely!  I was happy to hear how much my Kinders remembered about hibernation ~ we learned about it way back in January!

We worked on comparing numbers this week.  The kiddos had fun using dice in Gerber baby food containers to determine their numbers.  I printed some cupcakes (from My Cute Graphics) & they put clear counter "sprinkles" onto them.  Whoever had the most sprinkles won the round.  This was a super easy activity to put together, but they had fun with it!

Hortons!  We made these cute elephants after watching Horton Hears a Who this week.  The three kindergarten classrooms took turns hosting a movie showing.  It took four days to see the movie in its entirety, but the kids had fun visiting their neighbors. 

Of course, no Dr. Seuss week would be complete without a Cat in the Hat craft.  This year we created this cute My Day With the Cat craftivity.  First, the kiddos wrote about what they would do if they got to spend the day with the cat.  On Friday we put together cute cats.  They are now hanging on our hallway bulletin board.  I am so pleased with the writing my kids have done this year!  And, they really rock with phonemic spelling!  (Thank you PTO for getting us Jolly Phonics!)

I finally finished the math portion of my Animal products & put together a bundled package.  It is on sale this week.  Check it out HERE!

Five for Friday & a Facebook Free-for-All

I know it's Saturday...  But, here is my five.  (Thanks to Doodle Bugs for hosting this great linky party!)

Hurry over to my Facebook page & grab my freebie!

 The Pen Pal Project.  We wrote letters to our pen pals in my daughter Sarah's Kinder class.  I am soooo happy with their writing.  Other than writing kindergarten and Morgan on the board, I didn't help them spell anything!  My kids are getting really good at writing the sounds they hear & using the room to find words they want to write  The day before writing our letters, we worked on a list of things that would be good to tell a pen pal, which is why they all start out pretty much the same.  I left it up to the kids to decide what else they wanted to write. 

We read Cloudy With the Chance of Meatballs this week and worked together to make posters.  I really like the bottom one because I'm featured on it holding a cupcake.  My kiddos know that I love, love, love cupcakes!

My ever growing collection of Rainbow Loom jewelry.  I wore all of the bracelets on Friday - it was quite a fashion forward statement when paired with my Murano beads on my Pandora bracelet!  I don't mind the bracelets, but I'm not crazy about the rings, they tend to be itchy.  

 Are you looking for something to spice up your literacy stations the week of Dr. Seuss's birthday?  Check out these products in my store...

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