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School Success with Dr. Suess: Exploring Themes Through Creative Activities
By Katie Klinger
2/21/08In 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.
What an event!
Submitted by Julie Bray (not verified) on June 14, 2008 - 06:54.
Each year around Dr. Seuss' birthday we do an event also around reading. We do cross age tutor reading, community members reading, etc.
Over the years our teachers have expanded it some with projects which incorporate the work of Dr. Seuss.
I would love to see the plan and the flyer used for this event, it sounds amazing and much more interactive. The students would all be so much more involved by expanding in this manner.
I am looking forward to
Submitted by J Bray (not verified) on June 14, 2008 - 06:46.
I am looking forward to finding out even more of the nitty gritty of all the activities.
We have Dr. Seuss day each year near his birthday and although we do some fun activities to engage students in reading and books I would love to be able to extend it to this level of creativity and engagement.
Thank you for sharing such a great idea.
I will like a schoolwide theme...
Submitted by B. Cahill (not verified) on May 27, 2008 - 18:37.
I love this school wide activity! I teach first grade and I do a huge across the curriculum unit with Dr. Seuss, but I love the idea of a school wide event! Dr. Seuss might seem childish to the older students, until they can relate to the stories, lessons learned, and all the different concepts that can be taught at all the grade levels; I would imagine this to be an eye opening event for everyone involved. This would give the students the opportunity to learn, interact and apply all the different concepts and skills they have learned and through all the different styles, creativity outlets and from each student.
What a way to show a well rounded community working together. I imagine the students get more out of this activity than what is covered in the curriculum; they see relationships and teamwork, they learn not only from their teachers, but peers and younger students and vice versa.
I think this is a great idea
Submitted by nicole cameron (not verified) on June 10, 2008 - 14:38.
I think this is a great idea too. I am imagining using this concept with my k-1 grade mild/mod special education students. I teach a class that has rented a building on the school campus so we are not always included in all the school activities. I did see this past March that the school was doing a Dr. Suess theme and that some of the teachers and students were dressed in character. I would like to make some adaptations in order to fit the needs of my students. I could see the staff, in my classroom, dressing up and reading different stories to the students and then asking them questions to reassure the comprehension. This concept would reinforce colors, counting, correspondence, and also have concrete objects that were representative of the stories being read. My studnets absolutely love to read, or pretend to read, or be read to. I could also ask them to draw pictures to represent thier favorite parts of the story(ies). I would then ask them what was in their drawing and help them put a narrative to express their artwork.
I love this school wide
Submitted by B. Cahill (not verified) on May 27, 2008 - 18:33.
I love this school wide activity! I teach first grade and I do a huge across the curriculum unit with Dr. Seuss, but I love the idea of a school wide event! Dr. Seuss might seem childish to the older students, until they can relate to the stories, lessons learned, and all the different concepts that can be taught at all the grade levels; I would imagine this to be an eye opening event for everyone involved. This would give the students the opportunity to learn, interact and apply all the different concepts and skills they have learned and through all the different styles, creativity outlets and from each student.
What a way to show a well rounded community working together. I imagine the students get more out of this activity than what is covered in the curriculum; they see relationships and teamwork, they learn not only from their teachers, but peers and younger students and vice versa.
Exploring themes through creative activities
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on April 8, 2008 - 17:20.
Thanks for sharing the creative idea. It's neat that the children were able to have such an event and change in routine for the day. Certainly, the event allowed the studnets' to learn while at the same time have some fun!
Exploring themes through creative activities
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on April 6, 2008 - 11:38.
Great info. thanks for the idea...definately something that can be very beneficial and fun for students of all ages.
Exploring themes through creative activities
Submitted by Kristin (not verified) on March 24, 2008 - 09:21.
What a wonderful idea! Each March my school likes to do a theme for Reading Month. This time we chose pirates, but I would love to base our theme on an author. Dr. Seuss is a perfect choice because he appeals to a large audience, young and old. I would like to know more about the hands-on workstations, such as, what kinds of activities were available for the students?
"Suess" schoolwide enrichment
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on March 22, 2008 - 18:50.
Thank you so much for sharing such a great idea. I am the Read Across America Chairperson for our district's Read Across America Day held in the beginning of March. We are always looking for ideas that can be used with all the students throughout all the buildings (various grade levels). It seems as if you had a huge success with this even up to the Middle School. I will be sure to share this with my team.
Seussville and creativity
Submitted by Alison Harper (not verified) on March 4, 2008 - 20:02.
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!
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