Read Across America- A Peek at My Week

Why do the weekends go by so fast? I swear it was Friday 10 minutes ago! I don’t normally look forward to Monday but this week I am excited to get back to my classroom and dive in to Read Across America Week! You can learn more about Read Across America Week by clicking here.

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year and one of my favorite units to teach my kids. Every year when we celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday and Read Across America, I am reminded how important read alouds are and how much my students enjoy them. It’s sad that read alouds are often the first to go when we are trying to fit everything else in. Dr. Seuss’s stories are the best for read alouds because they are silly, funny and full of tongue twisters. I can still remember my dad reading me Fox in Socks when I was a little girl. He had the whole book memorized by the time I was 5 years old. I used to make him read it over and over again. How many books can we say that about?

Here’s a look at what I have planned for my week and what I have done in the past. A few years ago I decided I would focus on one book per day and try to plan activities that were based on each book. This year I am excited to add What Pet Should I Get? to my plans! Have you read it? My Nana and Poppop gave it to my son when he was born and we love it! We read it during bath time because that’s the only time he sits still long enough to listen to a Dr. Seuss book. I whipped up a writing response sheet for a shared writing activity on Friday. You can grab it at the bottom of this post!

If you’re teaching about Dr. Seuss this week, make sure you check out the Seussville website. There are tons of resources there and lots of interactive activities!   

Happy reading!

Finger painting fun! We follow up this activity with writing in our journals. “If the Cat in the Hat came to my house, we would….”

Strawberry banana “hats”

Jello and yogurt parfaits and Thing 1 and Thing 2 hats. My class looks so cute in these!

This book cover project is super easy! I just print out the cover of the book and have my students cut it up and label the parts: author, title, illustration, award. 

Every year I show my students my copy of Fox in Socks from when I was a little girl. That “5” written in the upper left hand corner was from my days playing school and library. No surprise there!

My kids go crazy for this simple card game. We play a different version of it during every unit. It’s quite simple. Pick a card, read the card, keep the card. If you draw Green Eggs or Ham, you lose all of your cards! I like having multiple versions because my kids are all at different levels. We play with letters, sounds, sight words and nonsense words. 

The Lorax craft is made from orange paper plates, yellow tissue paper and strips of orange construction paper! All of the supplies can be purchased at Hobby Lobby.

Click below to download this freebie!

You can grab most of these activities in my Rhyming Readers unit! 

Here is a preview of what’s included: