School Success with Dr. Seuss: Exploring Themes Through Creative Activities
By Katie Klinger
2/21/08
In part one of this entry, I wrote about an interdisciplinary event that our school planned and carried out. Here's another schoolwide activity to inspire you and motivate your students.
For the book event, held at the Myron B. Thompson Academy (MBTA), in Honolulu, Hawaii, all the elementary school teachers help design costumes, props, artwork and innovative hands-on activities for a daylong learning experience. The activities for this event are based on the key ideas from a book or a set of books. Previous selections have included Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
This year's event, Seussville, stimulated student creativity and fostered their awareness of subjects such as discrimination, ecology, friendship, responsibility, and war through the innovative prose and poetry of Dr. Seuss. Prior to the event, students completed a structured assignment that focused on major themes in his books.
The entire faculty of MBTA, both elementary school and secondary school teachers, dressed up as characters from such Dr. Seuss works as The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. In addition, teachers asked the children to think about which characters impressed them in the Dr. Seuss books they'd read.
As a result, the majority of students also dressed up as their favorite character or as a citizen of Whoville (a town in some of his stories). Student government officers dressed up as the Cat in the Hat and escorted the K-6 students from workstation to workstation. The sixth-grade teacher also dressed up as the Cat in the Hat and delighted the children with his original, workstation-appropriate rhymes. The children laughed and giggled every time he would enter their work space.
Patty Rothrock, the second-grade teacher, created innovative passports. Students would have them stamped in each room as they finished the authentic learning activity for that workstation. The staff and faculty encouraged the students to do their best at each workstation and to benefit from the constructivist hands-on activities.
Teachers challenged the students to produce artwork and writing that illustrated how the themes in Dr. Seuss's books -- social justice, environmental awareness, equality, and nonviolence -- were relevant to their daily lives. The educators provided the students and parents with feedback on the work and proudly exhibited the art and text in a gallery. They also documented the work with digital photographs to use in future discussions about the efficacy of classroom-assessment tools. The new MBTA Web site will feature these Seussville images as its opening photo collage.
Please share your thoughts about this event, or describe similar events you have organized or your school has held.
School success with Dr. Seuss
u know katie, as a preschool teacher, i have noticed that children are extremely fascinated and intrigued when they are allowed to participate, hands-on, in learning experiences. then, to add costumes and the enthusiasm of an entire staff was definately a brilliant and memorable idea for both staff and student. with all of the chaos in the world today, events or activities such as this allow teachers like me to keep my faith alive in the school systems. to know that there are many people out there who do indeed care about our children and the importance of spreading the messages of discrimination, ecology, friendship, resposibility and war is awesome. what a great way to celebrate the birthday of the great, late Dr. Seuss.
Big fan of the creative ideas
This is schoolwide activity is a great idea. It seems like an awesome creative outlet for the students and the teachers. I wish I was a part of this school, but thank you for sharing I would love to see something to this idea being started at school, Alexander Montessori. I think everyone has a favorite Dr.Seuss book. My fave, "Oh, The Places You Will Go". It really pays off to see the children work with something they love to learn about and can really express themselves with.
Quick Question: For this activity, you obiviously set a date; but how long do you give the students to prepare and plan? A week or two?
A day with Dr. Seuss
I am currently a college student. I loved this school wide activity. The whole concept is great from having teachers and students dress up, the workstations, passports, everything. As a student myself I love it when my teachers give me hands on activities that let be creative. Assignments like these keep students and teachers intrested.
Timeline for student planning and preparation
Hello, Melissa - we send out the flyer with the instructions for the event a month prior to the exciting day...this gives them time to design and illustrate their original artwork for their travel brochure, etc. if that is one of the choices they pick ...we send the flyer out via email to the parents to ensure that the entire family becomes involved. You and I share the same love of the "Oh, The Places You Will Go"...it was hard for me to choose the Foot Book and the Lorax, but I did because of their versatility for teachable moments by their parents and me during the time up to the event in class.
Book event is well worth it
Thank you...I agree that this school has engaged their students 100% during these events...even the parents flock to the event and wish they could be children again...we have an iron gate that closes behind the children when they enter the area, and the parents lean against the gate with big smiles anticipating the fun their children are going to have during these learning experiences...when the event is over, the parents are invited in at the end of the day to see the various classrooms, their activities and their decorations...many parents take photos of their children at this time for their family memory books...and of course, we are documenting the entire process from the first day of making the classrooms come alive until the end of the day clean-up...we all look forward to doing the Book Event each year even though it does take hours and hours of preparation...but it is well worth it!
School-wide activity planning
This was an inspiring idea, we have been trying to do more of this school-wide activity planning in my school. I teach in a K-8 school and like the idea of having older students participate by helping younger students. How was the response from the older grades?
Dr. Seuss and oh the miracles he performs
I teach first grade in an extremely rural area where I am the only first grade teacher in the building. I too have observed the incredible difference it makes when young children really connect with activities. Read Across America time is one of my favorite weeks. There really is something magical about seeing six year olds engage in such relavant topics and exhibit such energy for understanding what it all means to them. I feel like I just got some great ideas on how to take it to the next level for next year!
Seussville and creativity
Seussville was a fabulous event. My daughter attended and as the homeschooling mom, I think we enjoy these events even more than the traditional schools because our kids don't often have the opportunity to spend the day socializing and learning. The only down side to the day was sending the children home with live fish. I would have liked to have been asked prior to the event, even if we were interested in family pets. Dr. Katie, where are you? Is there any way to get in touch with you now that you're no longer with us? Addie will miss you!
Photos of Seussville are now Posted on Web
Dear Alison, how much fun it is to log onto this blog and read your message from you and Addie! The new MBTA website is up with a short collage of photos...I, of course, have an entire selection of them for you and Addie since she really was engaged that day in all of the activities and a star in many of the photos I took! The new website is available for any readers of this blog to enjoy what a progressive school MBTA is in Honolulu, Hawaii. Warmly, Dr. Katie
Older students loved Seusseville!
The 7th -12th grade students loved the event! The MBTA Student Government were all dressed in imitation of the Cat in the Hat with white shirts, black slacks, red bow tie, red and white tall Cat in the Hat hats and big smiles on their faces as they greeted the younger students at the gate, checked off their names on the attendance list, gave them their special passport for the day, and led them one by one into the main area for the opening event...then these wonderful young people served as guides as they shepherded their groups from one room (workstation activity) to the next and ensured that all of their charges had their passports stamped in each room and finished their activity before the group moved on collectively to engage in another activity! And of course, the Cat in the Hat was roaming freely, rhyming and teasing the guides as part of his bigger Seussville family...they had as much fun, if not more in many social ways, than the younger children for whom the day was carefully planned.