Thank You Dr. Seuss!

You have to admit, the post holiday, end of February "blehs" did set in for a little bit... I know I'm skipping ahead, but we have just loved doing Dr. Seuss theme at preschool a few weeks ago, so I thought I would anyway! It truly gave me a new spark to start off March:) First of all, there is SO MUCH to do surrounding Dr. Seuss books. I could've gone on for weeks and weeks! I just chose a few more "common" books, and then Ike and I did even more on the other days without preschool kids (I told you, we LOVED it)! I actually found lots of great ideas on www.seussville.com, and a variety of momma bloggers like myself (ok, way better than me...) and then of course, gave things my own little twist:) Apparently, I was really terrible at taking pictures b/c we were soo busy having fun, but at least you get the idea... Anyway here are some highlights from Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, and The Foot Book...

1. The Foot Book... We did a study of our own feet. We charted our foot size compared to our friends. We measured them, made a book about them, traced them for the book, added embellishments (on the book, not our real feet), described them, looked at other animals' feetsies, danced with paint (outside), squished and sqaushed and had a grand ol' time! So fun:)

2. Green Eggs and Ham... Just happened to coincide with right before St Patrick's Day, so we made green eggs and ham of course, for snack and graphed whether we liked it or not. Among other things, we also did some rhyming games with little cards the kids colored and cut out and then we played the game! This was a fun fun day. It was neat to teach the kids about rhyming and help them come up with their own rhyming schemes.

Oobleck... what else?

3. Cat in the Hat... We had such a fun time with this one! We played a game (after reading the book) where we went around the room and each child did a "homemade trick" (balancing while holding their tongue, etc.) and then the rest of us tried it. We also charted how many blocks we could balance in one hand as another trick. We made cat in the hat hats. They turned out so cute! Usually I don't do activities that are just cute, and I guess this one took a lot of concentration for cutting, patterning (red, white, etc.) but, when it comes down to it, it was just plain cute too! We had so much fun journaling this day too... the prompt I came up with was, "If the Cat in the Hat came to my house, I would..." The responses were hysterical:)

4. One Fish Two Fish- Again, we were able to spin this into a lot of rhyming and language gaming. I love taking a wonderfully written, fun, and engaging children's book and turning it into learning without them even knowing! THAT was today (and the past two weeks)! One game in particular we played with this one was to clap every time we heard a rhyme as we read the book. We also made our own stuffed red and blue fish... Made out of tissue paper, plastic page protectors and staples. My kiddos LOVE any chance to use the stapler (and it is a great way to build fine motor muscles, if carefully supervised!) So, we stapled away, and this is what we came up with! We also got to eat lots of yummy fish treats this day... swedish fish, fish sandwiches (just ike and zach), goldfish crackers, ocean water, and fish eggs (grapes).

See... I told you Dr. Seuss at preschool was going to be fun...