Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!: Read Across America Linky Party

Mrs. Parker is having a Linky Party for Read Across America, AKA Dr. Seuss' Birthday.  I love this day.  The first grade at our school always party it up for our favorite author's birthday.
We always start out March 2nd by reading Happy Birthday to You! By: Dr. Seuss.  Then, we use lined chart paper to create a list of materials we would need to put together the best birthday party ever.  

      Next we usually read the The Cat and the Hat Comes Back since we have already read The Cat in the Hat earlier in the year. After reading about the Cat in the Hat, then the students make a hat. Click to get the "Cat in the Hat" hat pattern.   There are several variations of the hat.  Students can use red construction paper to create a patter, just color the hat, or write different -at words in each section of the hat.  The way my students usually do the hat is to just color it, write their name on the "brim," and glue it to a sentence strip they have written a number of rhyming words on.

   One idea to celebrate Dr. Seuss' Birthday is to do a class writing based on one of his classics.  My class has done a rewrite of Green Eggs and Ham before (check it out).  When typing about using The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, it gave me the idea to talk about sequels and what happens to characters after the story ends.  So the Dr. Seuss book we will rewrite this time will be Wacky Wednesday.  Our title will be "Tricky Thursday."  If you are familiar with this book, a big part of it is the illustrations showing the topsy-turvey things that happen on "Wacky Wednesday."  The students will draw pictures to illustrate the scenes in the new writing.   Another good thing about this book is that Dr. Seuss wrote it under the name Theo. LeSieg, so you can use this as a way to introduce his real name.

Math

Click the picture to download a few Seuss math activities I made.   The students use the pictures to work out the problems.

   It is a tradition at our school that we end March 2nd with a cake.  I buy an undecorated cake from Wal-Mart or Albertson's (They just stick together better than one I make at home).  Then I cut the sides to give it the "Hat" shape and decorate it with red, white, and chocolate icing.

This isn't the best picture but you get the gist.