Dr. Seuss Week

It's a great week for learning
About this and that,
And dressing up just like
The Cat in the Hat.

For hearing a book about
Fish red and blue
Read by a coach
From our own LSU.

It's a great week when Middle School friends come to call.
We listen without interrupting at all.

It seems that the cows
Like to hear stories, too.
Their favorite book
Is, of course, Click, Clack, Moo.

It's a great week for oobleck,

And measuring feet,

For hopping on Pop, 

And for green eggs to eat.

It's a great week for Horton

the Elephant, too,

And wond'ring if we should be put in the zoo!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish is one of the first books I remember reading as a child. That was.....well, I won't say how many years ago, but it's great to see children still enjoying Dr. Seuss. I still delight in the cadence of the sentences as I read the books aloud. I love the rhyming words. I like using the books as a springboard for discussion: "A person's a person, no matter how small." "An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent." "Maybe Christmas, he said, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

For our Read Across America celebration, the kids rotated through the kindergarten classrooms. In each classroom, the students listened to a different Dr. Seuss book and engaged in learning experiences related to the book. Guest speakers also came to read to us. 

The students were thrilled to be able to read a lot of these books on their own. Using their knowledge of rhyming words and phoneme substitution, the class even wrote their own book, modeled after There's a Wocket in my Pocket.

Maybe one day, they'll be reading Dr. Seuss books to their children and grandchildren. Who knows? We may even have future authors in the class.