I love Dr. Seuss and all his wackiness so I never miss a chance to have some fun with one or two of his books. And every year we celebrate his birthday and Read Across America at our
library storytimes. As a matter of fact, each year our celebration gets BIGGER and BETTER and LONGER. This year we will celebrate with a two week long Seuss-ational event!
We will be starting with our first ever Dr. Seuss Pajama Party Storytime and end with an evening-long Family Storytime and Game Night.
Over the next few days or even weeks, I will be sharing some of my tried and true ideas, some of my brand-new ideas, and some creative ideas from a few librarian friends. This should be a Seuss-tacular blog!
But it will be a work in progress for awhile.
I hope you will bookmark it and come back often over the next few weeks...
I think I will try listing activities by the books that they are based on. This should help with the organization of all the different ideas.
Most of the ideas will be active games that we have shared with our storytime friends at our Family Game Night but there will also be craft ideas, snack ideas and learning activities for homeschool and classroom use..
Everything should be adaptable for one-to-one interaction at home or group fun at parties, at storytimes, and even in classrooms.
I will be posting a picture or two of each activity, a brief description, and a list of items needed. Included in the list will be a costume for the person in charge of the game (if we had one). Most items are found around the house, library, or classroom or something similiar can easily be re-created.
Put Me in the Zoo:
"Oh! They would put me in the zoo, if they could see what I can do."
Pin the Spot
Leopard likes to play with his spots, so why don't we have some fun with his colorful spots, too?
This game is just like Pin the Tail. It can be played two ways:
1. You can have no spots on the Leopard
and the children can pin their spot
wherever they want.
2. You can have spots on the Leopard and
the the children have to try to pin their
spot to a spot of the same color.
You will need:
Put Me in the Zoo book
Yellow posterboard to make the Leopard
Black Sharpie marker
Scissors
Tape
Blindfold
Lots of circles:
Red
Orange
Green
Blue
Purple
Zoo Keeper Costume:
Hat
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Our hat was a very old Keystone Cop hat
to which we added a Zoo Keeper patch
made from yellow fun foam and a black
sharpie. We attached it with a small
paperclip.
Even some of our youngest storytime friends had fun with this game ~ sans blindfold. |
Go, Dog. Go!:
"Look at those dogs go. Go, dogs. Go!
Stop, dogs. Stop! The light is red now.
Go, dogs. Go! The light is green now."
Stop and Go Toss
The dogs need to know when to stop and when to go. Let's help them learn the difference between red and green lights.
This game is just a Bean Bag Toss game. We had the child toss the red bean bag onto the red circle when our helper said, "Stop!" and the green bean bag onto the green circle when he said, "Go!".
You will need:
Go, Do. Go! book
Black or gray posterboard
Red construction paper
Green construction paper
Tacky glue
Scissors
Black sharpie marker
Beanbags:
Red
Green
Dog Costume:
Ears
Tail
Nose
***We do a "live action" presentation of the book, Go, Dog. Go!, so we already had a dog costume. If you don't have one available, it is easy to make dog ears and tail from felt or even construction paper. You can add a nose with face paint or even a washable marker.
The Cat in the Hat:
"I know some good games we can play."
Cookie Stacking
The Cat in the Hat loves to play games and he loves to stack things so we thought Cookie Stacking would be the perfect game for him. He was very mischievious! And the rules seemed to change for each participant ~ but everyone had "lots of good fun that is funny!"
You will need:
The Cat in the Hat book
Cookies for stacking
Cookies for eating
Cat in the Hat costume:
Red and white hat
Black shirt
Black pants
Red bowtie
Cat nose
Cat tail
***As stated before, we do "live action" presentations of books so we already have many costume pieces ~ such as the cat nose and tail. If you don't have them, it is easy to make the tail from felt or even construction paper and you can add a nose and whiskers with face paint or even a washable marker. You can also make a Cat in the Hat hat with construction paper. There are many patterns on the internet for different styles. We made our bowtie from red felt and pinned it on with a safety pin.
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| All ages had fun stacking cookies! |
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Look at that concentration!
Even the younger ones were successful ~ sometimes with fewer cookies to stack.
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***We found it best to have two different kinds of cookies ~ one kind for stacking and one kind for eating. We usually use the WalMart brand of sandwich cookies that have chocolate and vanilla in the package. We use the vanilla ones for stacking and the chocolate ones for sharing because everyone loves chocolate, right? ;-)
The Sneetches:
"My name is Sylvester McMonkey McBean. And I've heard of your troubles. I've heard you're unhappy. But I can fix that. I'm the Fix-it-Up Chappie."
Fix-it-Up Tattoos
The Plain-Belly Sneetches all wanted stars on their bellies so The Fix-it-Up Chappie, Sylvester McMonkey McBean, came a long with his peculiar machine and gave them "stars upon thars!" Then the Star-Belly Sneetches decided to remove their stars and soon no one knew which Sneetch was which!
This activity is something that all the little ones line up for. We "face-painted" stars ~ but we put them on cheeks, arms, or hands ~ child's choice.
You will need:
The Sneetches book
Face paints
Paintbrushes
Bowls (if necessary)
Wet wipes or papertowels
Sylvester McMonkey McBean costume:
Green bowler hat
Large green bowtie
Yellow shirt
"That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars and whether they had one, or not, upon thars."
Check back again soon because I will be back with
more Seuss-tastic ideas!
