Celebrating Dr. Seuss is fun anytime of year! We learned about his love of reading and rhyming and turned that into seven Dr. Seuss stations. Each station helped my students to learn more about rhyming words, opposites and helped to excite them about reading!
All of these stations are quick and easy to set up and each take just a few minutes to prep! These stations could be used on one day to celebrate Dr. Seuss or used as activities in a literacy center. Using red and white striped tablecloth on each table helps to set the theme!
My students loved using the Rhyming Sounds Matching Puzzles to help them find rhyming pairs. I placed one piece of the puzzle in the bottom of the puzzle and scattered the rest on the table. My students picked up one puzzle from the stack in the box and then searched for its matching, rhyming partner on the table. As each student looked for the matching rhyming word, I encouraged them to say the word out loud so they could hear when the words rhymed or did not rhyme. For my students who struggled with finding the matching rhyming word, we grabbed some Dr. Seuss books and I read the beginning parts of the sentences aloud that contained some of these rhyming words. My students were able to orally tell me the rhyming word that finished the sentence and then find its matching puzzle piece.
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Next, I created a fun and simple way to help my students practice rhyming words using popcorn! I wrote rhyming words on the Popcorn Bulletin Board Cutouts and then wrote the corresponding word family ending on some super cute Popcorn Bags! I was careful to come up with word families that contained each of the five vowels so my students could also have experience working with and listening for those sounds. I also tried to pick word families from Dr. Seuss books so my students could refer back to them if they needed help. We worked with the -at, -ed, -ig, -ot, and -ug. Whenever I could, I tried to vary the ending consonant sounds so my students could explore different ending sounds in words. I then laid out all the popcorn cutouts on the table (adorned with Red & White Striped Tablecloth) and students placed them in the correct bags.
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When exploring Dr. Seuss' characters, you can't leave out the Fish!! I created this station so my students could practice rhyming skills while having fun with those fun fish! I used a package of Dr. Seuss Fish Bulletin Board Cutouts and labeled them with words from different word families. I included many words with two and three letter blends at the beginning of the words so my students could practice reading them. I then labeled several Red Chevron Snack Paper Bowls with word families that matched those written on the fish. I again, tried to pick words that were from Dr. Seuss' books, so my students could refer back to them if needed. Students pick a fish and place it into the correct paper bowl.
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To further practice rhyming words, I gave each student at this station a Dr. Seuss Hat and a permanent marker. Because we were working with "hats", I asked each student to think of a word in the -at family and to write that word on the bottom band of their hat. After they had written that word, I asked my students to help me think of some more words that could rhyme with -at and we created a list. Students then used their permanent marker to write an -at family word on each band of their Dr. Seuss Hat. There were several of my students who wanted to add more -at family words on their hats, so they added a second column of words!
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One thing that Dr. Seuss inspires all of my students to do is READ! They love that midway through Kindergarten that they can pick up a book and read (or sound out) most of the words in them. To keep that excitement going, I wanted each of my students to be able to create a bookmark so they could take it home and mark their place in all their new favorite books! At this station, my students had two options when creating their bookmarks. They could either use the Magic Color Scratch Bookmarks or the Color Your Own Cool Doodle Bookmarks. The only directions I gave my students was that they needed to create a bookmark that they would love to keep in the book they were reading. Many students added the words "Read" and "Learn" to their bookmarks in addition to the designs on them.
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To bring a little math to our Dr. Seuss stations, we created a graph of our favorite fish after we read, "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" as a group. Each student picked their favorite color fish from the Dr. Seuss Fish Bulletin Board Cutouts and told us a few things about why they liked that fish the most. After that, we placed our fish on this small wall display and created a bar graph. I created the wall out of a blue tablecloth (hung on the wall with painters tape) and added a sign that asked "Which fish is your favorite?" After each student had a chance to hang up their favorite fish, we were able to look at the graph we had made and talk about how many of each fish that students in our room liked. We also compared which fish had the least amount of students liked and how many more fish we would need to add to make it equal the group with the most fish.
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The last station helped my students to practice opposites. I find that even though my students can identify opposites when we are reading books as a group, they struggle to identify them when they are working without adult support. I loved that these puzzles helped my students practice a much-needed skill, but connected back to popular Dr. Seuss books so that my students could refer back to them if needed. My students also enjoyed seeing the pictures on each puzzle piece that illustrated the word. That helped them figure out the opposite that they needed to find.
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