Celebrating Read Across America

I don't know about you guys, but it just baffles me that we are almost all the way through February!  We have a short week this week for parent teacher conferences, which means I get to go through all my shelves and make sure things are in order.  Lucky me!  My to-do list for conference days is always a million miles long and never seems to get even halfway done.  We'll see how productive I am at the end of this week!

Every year the National Education Association promotes Read Across America day.  This program is an effort to get students across the country reading and celebrating a love of books.  Since it falls on Dr. Seuss' birthday, many people love to celebrate with Dr. Seuss themed activities.  With the event approaching quickly I thought I would share some of my favorite ideas.

Fox in Socks Graphing
I have seen this idea a few times in my searching and thought it was a great way to incorporate math with literature!  You designate one day of the week as "Silly Socks Day".  Students wear their silliest socks and listen as you read Fox in Socks.  Then, you can have students decorate a sock with a new design and tape it onto the board in either the "Wearing Silly Socks" or "Not Wearing Silly Socks" section.  Once all the data is collected, students create graphs to show how many students in their class are wearing silly socks. 

The Lorax with Upper Elementary Skills
I found this great blog post from One Stop Teacher Shop with ideas on how to use The Lorax with upper elementary students.  She has worksheets for inference, context clues, and story mapping.  There are even movie questions and a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the book with the movie.  All of the worksheets are $5 on her Teacher Pay Teachers site and it looks like it would be well worth it.

Cat in the Hat Word Family Sorting
I found these free word family sorting hats on This Reading Mama.  It would be a perfect center activity in your classroom for Read Across America.  She has included PLENTY of short and long vowel options, so you will be guaranteed to find word families you have covered with your students already.  If you plan ahead you can even laminate them to be used every year.  Just put them in envelopes with the word family on the front so you can easily find them as you teach them!

Rhyme Time Sorting
Khrys from Keepin' It Kool in KinderLand created this free rhyme sorting page.  This would be a great activity for your kinders and first graders.  You could have the entire class do it at once after doing a rhyming lesson with a Dr. Seuss book, or have it as a center.  You can find the download here.

Bartholomew and the Oobleck
This has to be one of my favorite Dr. Seuss activities.  It is definitely a messy one, but the kids absolutely love it!  Plus, you get to combine science and reading all in one!  It is a great project to discuss states of matter, and I have even seen some posts where you incorporate sound as well.  The book is a bit long, so I broke it up throughout the day with my second graders and we did the science portion at the end of the day.  Go to my Read Across America Pinterest board for several links to this activity.


I will be continuing to look for Dr. Seuss activities in the coming week so make sure to follow me on Pinterest for more great ideas!  Do you have a favorite activity for Read Across America Day?    Until next time, happy reading!