Celebrate Dr. Seuss’ Birthday with a Trip to Seussville

The Cat in the Hat, Fox in Socks, There a Wocket in My Pocket, Oh, the Places You’ll Go…The list of books by Dr. Seuss is endless!

Tuesday, March 2 is Dr. Seuss’ birthday. Schools across the country will be celebrating Read Across America week with literacy activities inspired by the characters in favorite Dr. Seuss books.

Since the celebration of reading and love of books will continue during March as America Reads month, you can celebrate by reading your child’s favorite Dr. Seuss books and use the following links to access interactive websites, printable worksheets, free downloadable Dr. Seuss books, and activities that will inspire you to bring Read Across America and America Reads into your own home.

Previously featured as a Tech Savvy Mama Website of the Week, Seussville is called Dr. Seuss’ cyberspace world and is filled with interactive games based on characters from Dr. Seuss books. Here are some of my favorite games:

• Seussville Storymaker features characters from Horton Hears a Who. Fluent readers and writers, get to practice their story writing skills to create a 3 scene story between various Horton Hears a Who characters. Students begin by typing their name and the title of their story then select background, characters, music, and text before typing what they would like the selected characters to say to each other.
• Diffendoofer Teachers Have Lost Their Rooms can reinforce reading comprehension skills. In this game, children need to read the text that appears on the screen describing each of the Diffendoofer Teachers. Based on what is read, they click on a door, listen for a sound, and try to match the teacher to the appropriate classroom.
• One Fish Two Fish Concentration– A Memory-like game with your favorite fish from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
• Fox in Socks Word Puzzle Game– A game that requires children to look at the picture and write a sentence based on what they see. The game gets tricky!
• To see my recommendations for Seussville games designed specifically for beginning and more fluent readers, click here.

The Scholastic website has a comprehensive list of activities based on favorite Dr. Seuss stories that help teach math and reading skills in a fun way. Here are my picks for the best of Scholastic’s offerings:

• Playing Guess Who! with Horton Hears a Who, The Sneetches, The Cat in the Hat, or Yertle the Turtle
• Creating story maps or discuss the different parts of the story with books like And To Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street
• Making a picture dictionary using Dr. Seuss’ made up words
• Practicing math by making One Fish, Two Fish patterned headbands
  
• Having a discussion about valuing diversity after reading The Butter Battle Book
  
• Reinforcing math concepts like graphing and analyzing data using the 500 Hats of Bartholemew Cubbins
• Click here for ideas for On Beyond Zebra, Green Eggs and Ham, There’s a Wocket in My Pocket, and Happy Birthday to You

Print out some fun crafty activities to Cat-in-the-Hatify your house:

• Play I Spy with Diffendoofer characters
• Cat in the Hat maze
• Cat in the Hat door hanger
• Certificates, bookmarks, and a Read Across America poem, readers’ oath, and proclamation from the National Educator’s Association (NEA) website

If you want to learn more about the real Dr. Seuss, here’s some background information about the famous Theodor Seuss Geisel including the real story about why he started using an alias. Hint: Drinking party at Dartmouth! Yes, really!

This post was inspired by this month’s Yahoo MotherBoard topic about celebrating reading during America Reads month. To read what the moms of Yahoo are saying about kids, careers, and balancing the two, visit their Yodeling Mamas blog for a glimpse into their digital and domestic lives.