#470. Meeting and Reading Dr. Seuss

Reading/Writing, level: Elementary
Posted Fri Jun 11 12:47:57 PDT 1999 by Brenda Beaty (bmdbeaty@forbin.com).
Waterloo Community Schools, Waterloo, IA. USA
Materials Required: Dr. Seuss books, computer
Activity Time: 5 days
Concepts Taught: comparing and contrasting

LESSON PLANS FOR DR. SEUSS WEEK

These plans are developed to be used in a second grade class. They will be used during the month of March when the school is preparing to celebrate Dr. Seuss Day.

The standard that is being addressed is: Demonstrate competence in the general skills and strategies of the reading process.

To meet the benchmarks, second grade students will know basic sight words, demonstrate comprehension of simple stories, and demonstrate knowledge of story elements. This will also meet the criteria of balanced literacy--reading to with and by students.

This will be a week long activity that will cross several curricular areas. The teacher will do the initial reading to the class of several of Dr. Seuss books. Class discussion will ensue, the internet will be used, and graphing and word problem work will occur during math lessons. The beginning of the second week will be the celebration school wide of Dr. Seuss's birthday. All of the books that the teacher has read to the students or any Dr. Seuss books that she is not using as part of this plan will be available for the children to read during seat work time.

Day 1. Teacher will initiate a discussion of Dr. Seuss. As a class the children will complete a KWLW chart with the students on what they know about Dr. Seuss. Discussion will continue with what books of Seuss's that they are familiar with and take a straw poll of their favorite book. The teacher will then read And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street. For seat work/computer time that day students will work in pairs (high ability reader with lower ability readers) to answer the questions on the scavenger hunt. The teacher will have the computer opened to the internet site http://www.randomhouse.com/seussville. See attachment for scavenger hunt.

Day 2. Entire class will continue work on the KWLW chart filling in what they had learned from the web site. Students will be invited to add to this chart as they gather information during the week. Teacher will then read Oh the Places You'll Go. For seatwork/computer time the students will go to the above cited web page and play the Elephant Ball Game.

Day 3. For entire class work for this day, teacher will direct a discussion of the story elements. A graphic organizer (see attachment) will be filled in after reading Cat in the Hat. The computer work for the day will be playing the Cat in the Hat game on the site. (These games are short so the entire class can be rotated through in one day if they work in pairs or possibly triads.)

Day 4. Venn diagram will be used in class work today. Teacher will model with them how to compare and contrast two of the previously read books. The teacher will determine what two items will be compared/contrasted. A more complicated Venn diagram of three items could be added if teacher feels that the class is capable of this level. The teacher will then read Green Eggs and Ham. This day will be used as a catch up day for any students that have not completed their work on the web site.

Day 5 Teacher will read Sam I Am. After the reading of this book, the students will take a vote on their favorite Dr. Seuss book. This information will then be graphed during math class. After the vote, the teacher and class will then e-mail a second grade class (the teacher will have previously arranged this with another second grade teacher in another building) to report the results of their vote. The other class will then respond with their vote. This information will then be used to write word problems for math. (ex. Class 1 had 9 students that voted for Green Eggs and Ham. Class 2 had 5 students that voted for it. How many more students in class 1 voted for Green Eggs and Ham than in class 2?) For the computer/seat work time on this day, the students will once again return to the Seussville webpage to play the final game of Trivia.

The teacher will be assessing as children discuss the story elements, the completed story web activity, and noting improvement in reading fluency as basic sight word vocabulary in increased. The final trivia game will be used as an assessment of their comprehension of the stories read.

SCAVENGER HUNT

Meet Dr. Seuss. Read through the articles on the web about Dr. Seuss and the interview with Dr. Seuss. Answer the questions. One person is the driver and one person is the recorder.

1 What is Dr. Seuss's real name?_______________________


2. Where was he born?________________________________
Can you find that on the U.S. map?

3. What was the name of his first book?__________________

4. How many books did Dr. Seuss write?__________________

5. Who finished writing Dr. Seuss's last book?_____________


Write at least two complete sentences telling about what you thought were the most interesting things you learned about Dr. Suess. Remember to use capital letters and ending punctuation.