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JDaniel4s Mom

growing & learning with him

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

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Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

Dr Seuss characters are fun to learn along with on Dr Seuss’ birthday (March 2nd) and well any time of the year really. Children see characters that they know and get excited about getting to play and learn with them outside of their books.  I have created at number for learning games and activities the feature Dr Seuss characters over the last few years. I hope that you find a few that you that you would like to do with the children that learn with you.

 

Dr Seuss Characters and Activities We Have Done that Feature Them

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The Lorax

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

We have done a number of activities that feature the Lorax. He is one of my son’s favorite  Dr Seuss characters.

 

The Cat in the Hat

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

We have done crafts and math games all featuring the Cat in the Hat and other Dr Seuss characters in his book.

 

Green Eggs and Ham

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

Sam I Am is just one of those characters that fills both your children’s head and yours with rhymes. I bet many of us can recite most of the words in this book.

 

The Tooth Book (Bright & Early Board Books(TM))

tooth book activity

It is fascinating to read this book and see just how many different kinds of teeth there are in the world.

 

Fox in Socks (Beginner Books)

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

We did a retelling activity after reading this book. What fun it was to make a fox with a sock!

 

Dr. Seuss’s Beginner Book Collection (Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, Hop on Pop, Fox in Socks)

Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

We made homemade play dough based on a number of Dr Seuss characters we read about  in a collection of his book.

Homemade Play Dough in Dr Seuss Colors

 

If you do try any of the above Dr Seuss character activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about it  or share a picture of it on my Facebook page. You may also want to check out my Dr Seuss board on Pinterest. It is filled with wonderful activities that feature Dr Seuss Characters.

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Lorax Truffula Tree Sight Words Game

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 lorax truffulla tree sight words game

We used this truffula tree game board to work on spelling words, but I think it could be used to work on any number of learning concepts. (The Lorax learning mat I shared earlier in the week worked that way too.) By creating file folder game boards without a specific skill displayed on them we can use them for lots of different activities.

Thoughts I Had While Putting This Game Together:

The trees displayed on this file folder game have black and yellow stripes on them.

lorax truffulla tree sight words game

We chose:

  • We moved up the tree by landing on each stripe.

 

You could:

  • You may have your children land on just the yellow or just the black stripes.

 

There is an open space on the right of the game board to display the concepts that you will be working on while playing this game.

We chose:

  • We used small halves of 3×5 index cards to write my son’s spelling and word wall words on. The words were written on the blank side of the cards and placed in a pile.

You could:

  • You may like the idea of using a whole index card or small pieces of paper to display the questions you want your children to answer or the words you want your children to spell. Colored index cards would be fun to use too.
  • A bowl or small box holding the cards could be placed in the open space to keep them neat and tidy. ( Our cards got kind of messy.)
  • A list of questions or words that will need to be read while playing the game could be placed on the right hand side of the folder.
  • Dice with dots, numbers or words could be rolled in the open space on the right side of the folder. Children could add the dots or numbers on the dice when they roll them. They could read the words written on small stickers placed on blank dice that end up face up when the dice are rolled.

Just about anything could be used as game markers for this file folder game.

We chose:

  • We chose to use some wooden peg people as our game pieces.

You could:

There are so many things that you could use as a game marker. Here is a list of things I think would be great game pieces:

  • Buttons
  • Small tiles
  • Paper clips
  • Fun erasers
  • Beans
  • Pom-poms

 

Here are some other wonderful sight words games:

Building Leaf Words

Scarecrow Sight Word Game

{Printable} Writing Sight Words on a Rainbow

Tape Spider Sight Word Game

Here are some sight words games from other learning blogs:

Sight Word Cup Crash

Sight Word Parking Lot

Sight Word Shake

Sight Word Connect Four

 

 lorax truffulla tree sight words game

 

If you do try any of the above sight words activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about it  or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

 

 

 

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Doctor Seuss Math Game- Lorax Adding

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doctor seuss math game lorax adding with file folder

The Lorax is one of our favorite Doctor Seuss books. One year for Doctor Seuss’ birthday (March 2nd) I made JDaniel a Lorax lunch. This year I made a fun file folder game with the Lorax for JDaniel. We used this game space to work on addition facts.  It could be used to work on a wide variety of skills. I will walk you through how we used it for addition and then share with you other ways to use this Lorax folder work space.

Doctor Seuss Math Game- Lorax Adding

Addition Version of the Game

The Lorax is up in arms about the demise of the truffula trees. When it came to deciding what hands on manipulative to use for counting,  I decided we had to use pom-poms. They look like the top of the truffula trees.

Each of the Lorax’s whiskers would be a work space used to display each of the numbers in the number sentence. The works spaces were made large so that manipulatives for large addition facts would fit in them.

Doctor Seuss Math Game- Lorax Adding

We used the homemade  flashcards I made to review addition facts with JDaniel. (If you have store bought flashcards, that are horizontal they would work too.) We tried to center the cards so the plus sign was right under the Lorax’s nose and each of the numbers lined up under one of the whiskers. If you make a Doctor Seuss Lorax math game, you may decide to make a circle with a plus sign to place right on the Lorax’s nose.  It might help your children visualize the fact.

Once the number sentence is displayed, one of us came up with the sum. My son was the one finding the sum, but we would have taken turns if he was just learning how to add.

Other Ways to this Doctor Seuss Themed Work Space

Find the Fact

Two people can play this game.One person displays the math fact on the Lorax  and the other person searches through a stack of index card to find its match. The opposite of this can be done to.  One person can select a card and read out the number fact. The second person can illustrate the fact with the pom-poms. One or both of the children can figure out the sum.

Speed Game

A timer can be set for two minutes.  Then a child can try to display and count as many sums as they can.  Why use the pom-poms when working on speed? The pom-poms can help children visualize a number sentence and sum.

Subtracting

Children can use the Doctor Seuss Lorax work space to work on subtraction facts. Children can take turns calling out and displaying subtraction facts or using flashcards.

Doctor Seuss Math Game- Lorax Adding

Here are some other Doctor Seuss Learning Activities We Have Done:

 Fox in Sox Retelling Puppet

The Tooth Book Sensory Bin

Doctor Seuss Thing One and Thing Two Shape Craft

Cat in the Hat Math Mat (Free Printable)

 

If you do try any of the above Doctor Seuss activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about it  or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.

 

 

 

 

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Homemade Playdough in Dr Seuss Colors

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Seuss Themed Play Dough

 
 
 

A simple homemade playdough recipe is such great thing to have on hand for those times when you get inspired explore Dr. Seuss colors in dough or any other concept or color at all. Just last week that is just what happened to me. My son and I were working on a Dr Seuss shape activity featuring Thing One and Thing Two when I decided that making playdough the color of their hair would be cool. From there my mind raced to other colors we could make. This post shares the four homemade playdough colors I decided to create.

The first color you already know from the paragraph above. We made Thing One Blue. Thing One blue is created by adding a just four quick drops to the homemade playdough base. I was worried about getting too deep a blue so, I added just one drop at a time to the mixture. When I got just the color I wanted, I stopped.

The second color we made was Fox in Socks red. We didn’t count the number of drops this time. We just added a bunch of them and stirred. The fox in Fox in Socks is deep red in color so, a bunch of red drops ended up being just right.

Our third color was Green Eggs green. I tried to think a better name for the color, but could not come up with one. It was created to go along with the book Green Eggs and Ham and it is green. Another name just wouldn’t make sense. I tried making the green homemade playdough using a quarter of the ingredients and adjusting the cooking time. The dough ended up being a little overcooked. Adding a little more dough and vegetable oil to the dough seemed to loosen it up some.

The homemade playdough recipe I use is so quick and simple. I was able to make four different colors of playdough in less than 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup salt
  • 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 1 cup of water1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
  • Food coloring

Directions:

  • Mix water and food coloring in a bowl.
  • Add the flour, salt, and cream of tartar to the mixture and stir.
  • Place the mixing bowl covered with plastic wrap in the microwave for 2 minutes at 50% power.
  • Stir the mixture.
  • Place the mixing bowl back into the microwave for 2 ½ more minutes at 50% power.
  • Knead the dough when cooled.
  • If the dough seems dry knead a dash of flour and vegetable oil into it.
Learning Activities with Dr Seuss Characters

JDaniel  had  blast exploring our Dr. Seuss colors in homemade playdough I bet your children with too.

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Dr Seuss Shape Activity

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While looking through a book that contains a collection of Dr. Seuss stories, I got the idea for this  Dr.Seuss Shape Activity. I am not sure why. Dr. Seuss’ illustrations are filled with fluid curves and fun bending lines. When I looked at Thing One and Thing Two, I saw ovals, circles, squares, and rectangles.
 

 

Skills This Activity Explores

I decided that this activity needed to involve a lot more learning skills than just cutting these shapes. (Though cutting skills could have been enough.) Involving tracing, cutting, letter writing, and visualizing in the activity seemed more exciting.

Finding the Craft Supplies in the Recycling Bin

That led me to get a pizza box out of the recycling bin and cutting out the shapes we would use to build the Dr. Seuss’ Thing One and Thing Two. The cardboard the pizza box was made of was super easy to cut out and thick enough to make tracing easy. Although we had cereal boxes in the bin too, I decided that their cardboard would be too thin to trace around.

Making the Shapes

I went with small tracing shapes for this project. Small shapes would fit onto a half sheet of construction paper when assembled into Thing One and Thing Two. They worked out well for this project. JDaniel did a good job tracing them. I would have made bigger tracing shapes for a slightly younger child.

Creating my Thing  Two Dr. Seuss shape activity was done first. Primarily to make sure that it would look okay when it was assembled. JDaniel used it as a model somewhat when he created his Thing  One creation. Having one already created ended up being helpful.

Then I put out all the supplies on the table for him and asked him to join me in creating. Having everything ready to go helped the creation process go very smoothly.

 
Dr. Seuss Math Activity - Tracing Shapes
 
 

JDaniel Creates the Dr. Seuss Shape Activity

Tracing carefully was easy for JDaniel. He placed the shapes all over the paper which gave him a lot of wiggle room for cutting. I had wedged all my shapes into one side of the red, white, and blue paper when I had cut my shapes out to save paper. When I saw what he was doing, I was glad we hadn’t done our tracing together. He might have tried to follow my lead and his way was better for him.

 
 
Assembling the Dr. Seuss Shape Activity Featuring Thing Two
 
Watching JDaniel put the shapes together to make his version of Dr. Seuss Thing Two was so much fun. He arranged the shapes on the paper to create his creature on paper just as I had done. (Only he wasn’t in the room when I made mine.) 
 
 
 
JDaniel decided to write out Thing One on the smaller of the two white circles before gluing it down. I did mine the opposite way and was stuck with that circle. If I hadn’t glued it down early, I would have cut out another white circle and written Thing Two on my Dr. Seuss creation again.
Assembling the Dr. Seuss Shape Activity Featuring Thing One and Thing Two
 

Thing One turned out great. I love how JDaniel completed this Dr. Seuss shape activity. His creature has eyes that make me think he is up to something and he has a very warm smile.

What materials did we use to create our Dr. Seuss shape activity?
  • blue, white, and red construction paper
  • glue sticks
  • scissors
  • cardboard shape to trace
  • black markers

Are you looking for some other Dr. Seuss activities? Here are some others we have done:

Green Eggs and a Cat in the Hat Shaped Lunch

 
 
 
 
 
Suprise! I have created a Dr. Seuss Themed Shape Activity printable set of shapes you can use to make these super cute Dr. Seuss creatures. You can cut out the shapes for your children or have them cut them out themselves.
You can assemble these shapes to make shape craft below.
 
 
 
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8 Dr. Seuss Activities and Snacks

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 8 Dr. Seuss Activities and Snacks

Yesterday I shared two to of the activities above in my Green Eggs and Ham-Read.Explore.Learn post. I thought I would share with you today those two and six other Dr. Seuss themed activities that JDaniel and I have done over the past few years. That gives me 8 Dr.Seuss activities and snacks to share.
The Cat in the Hat themed pancake with bacon and whipped cream with green eggs along with the tic tac toe game were in yesterdays post.

The next three activities came from a Dr. Seuss themed post I did last year called Celebrating Dr. Seuss- Read.Explore.Learn. 

The post included a Lorax snack that JDaniel inhaled. It was so easy to put together. I remember being excited that he could recognize who it was right away.
It also included a sand brushing activity based on the Tooth Book. JDaniel had to brush moon sand off of pictures of people’s teeth that I had cut from a magazine. He had the best time making the teeth dirty and then clean. This is one of the first sensory bin activities that I tried with him.

Finally, the post has a hunt for green pants that was based on story JDaniel got in a collection of Dr. Seuss stories. The Green Pants or What Was I Scared Of? is a wonderful story about dealing with things that scare you. In this story, the character avoids the green pants like crazy only to find out later that he had nothing to fear.
The last row contains ideas from three different posts. The fox made off of a red sock was shared in a post called Celebrating Dr.Seuss- Fox in Socks. The puppet was so easy to put together. We have the fox read Fox is Sock over and over to us.

The second picture in the last row came from a post that focused two Dr. Seuss books about the zoo. We read the books If I Ran the Zoo and Put Me in the Zoo (It is not by Dr. Seuss, but it does have the Cat in the Hat on the cover.) What do you do after reading a zoo book? Well, we went to the zoo.

The last picture is from a post I wrote for the Kid’s Activities Blog. The post featured a collage of the Lorax made of pictures we found in magazines.

 
If you don’t have an activity played for Dr. Seuss birthday tomorrow, I hope you will try one of these 8 Dr. Seuss activities and snacks.
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