Read Across America is a fun way to celebrate Dr. Seuss and show how much your class loves reading. We love to celebrate for the entire week! I've put together some of our favorite activities that we do in class.

This was an adorable door that was decorated at my school last year

Reading Activities

I think it's really important to get parents involved so I have parents volunteer come in and read their favorite Dr. Seuss book. Don't have parent volunteers? Just ask other teachers, the office staff, and school workers. I create a sign up through Google Forms. Make a copy of my form and edit it to meet your needs. Don't have enough books? You can use videos from You Tube like the one below!

One morning, we set aside reading time. Kiddos wear their jammies, bring a pillow or blanket, and spend the morning reading Dr. Seuss books. They have them at Target for just 5 bucks or check your local library.

Art

We do art a lot in our class, but we do even more art during this exciting week. I love these cute Thing 1 and Thing 2 directed drawings that go perfect with our hats and necklaces .

Science

Making Oobleck is something new for me as of last year. We had a school-wide door decorating contest and our class was assigned to read Bartholomew and the Oobleck. What a better way to incorporate science by making oobleck. Perfect for your first grade teachers studying matter. The best and least messy (The Borax way was too messy) way I've found to make oobleck is like this:

Oobleck Recipe

1 bottle of liquid starch

1 bottle of white glue

1 bottle of green tempera paint

water

I pass out a gallon ziplock bag to each table group and add in the ingredients. Each group gets 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of glue. I love that it's in the bag because it's easy for the kids to mix together without a mess. Slowly add in 1/2 cup of liquid starch. Add in some green paint to look like oobleck from the book.

Spirit Week

At our school, we decorate our class doors and have a fun spirit week. We even hide 20 loraxes in our school garden and go look for them. Each class has a map and an assigned time to find all of them. They love it!