My second grade classes completed a similar lesson. This time with Yertle the Turtle. When we start talking about favorite Dr. Seuss books, I have to say this is one of mine. I just love the message this book delivers. And that last line: "And the turtles, of course . . . all the turtles are free, As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be." Love it! This book allows for a great compare / contrast activity. There are two main characters, Yertle and Mack, who are very different from each other. To highlight these differences, we did a Venn diagram on the SMART Board comparing and contrasting the two characters. Again, the students loved sharing those descriptive words. We filled up our Venn diagram and still had words to spare. The word clouds that my third grade classes did turned out so well that, on my own, I took the words from our Venn diagram and turned them into word clouds, too. The students were really pleased with the finished result. They have been on display in the library for all to see.
We celebrated Dr. Seuss across the grade levels this week and my first grade students weren't left out. They wanted to hear Fox in Socks. It is a great tongue twister book that is difficult to get through. The kids love the challenge and will catch any mistakes you make. For fun, after reading the story, the kids designed their own socks to display in the library. There were some great ideas and some creative minds at work that day. It was funny how many of them drew smelly socks but assured me their own socks weren't smelly. I'm not too sure about that! Check out the photos below of some of their work. They were really proud of it.