Dr.+Seuss+Booktable

The following data was originally written by Paula White (in html) as part of her "Cut Loose with Dr. Seuss" site. It was written in 1996 as part of her web "Curriculum Kits on the Internet" collection. It is reproduced here because of the cool ideas and information. Please do not reproduce without permission.

**with Teaching and Learning Activities**
Dr. Seuss' books have been winners with young children for over 50 years and many of them are familiar to students--so as first graders begin a school year, they immediately feel successful as beginning readers! He was an amazing man--writing many diverse kinds of books. He could write limited vocabulary books (** //The Cat in the Hat// **) as well as books with more obvious moral messages (** //The Lorax// **) as well as books with incredible fantasy ( //**And** **To**// //**Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street**// )! He also wrote books for adults like **// You're Only Old Once !//**

The book titles in the table below all have additional info further below including my book entry, the activities done with it in my classroom, and some interesting trivia about each book we used. The latest additions to the booktable were added in February, 1998.  || Thidwick, The Big Hearted Moose || The Cat In The Hat Comes Back || The Foot Book ||
 * And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street || The Cat In The Hat
 * The Shape Of Me And Other Stuff

The 500 Hats Of Bartholomew Cubbins || Fox In Socks

If I Ran The Zoo || Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Scrambled Eggs Super || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Wacky Wednesday

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Green Eggs And Ham || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Bartholomew And The Oobleck

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Horton Hatches the Egg ||
 * <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Horton Hears A Who || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oh, The Places You'll Go || <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If I Ran The Circus || <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On Beyond Zebra ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Sneetches || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yertle The Turtle and Other Stories || <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Daisy Head Maysie || <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Butter Battle Book || <span class="wiki_link_ext" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Lorax ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **And** **To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1937  || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-84494-7 ||
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We read this book on the first day of school, so we used it to talk about how we got to school, the things we saw and the thoughts we were having on our first day of first grade. I then asked my students to draw a picture of something they had seen OR something they wished they could have seen. I gave them an option of being realistic or fanciful, so I could assess preferences, drawing ability, style and conversation with others as they worked. We then put our pictures in the hall with a caption, "And To Think That I Saw It On The Way To School Today!" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We also used **The Graph Club** to make a graph of how we felt coming to our first day of first grade. The choices were excited, nervous, both or something else. Then we printed the graph out so each child could take a copy home and talk with his/her parents about their feelings on the first day of school this year. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dr. Seuss had a REAL <span class="wiki_link_ext">Mulberry Street in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This was Dr. Seuss' first book for children and he almost gave up on getting it published. Just as he was walking down a street in New York on his way home to burn the manuscript, he ran into Mike McClintock, a classmate from Dartmouth, who had just become the juvenile editor of Vanguard. McClintock heard Ted Geisel's frustration and asked him to come up to his office, examined the book and then published it! The rhythm and rhyme made it an instant hit with both adults and children! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dr. Seuss wrote this book to help adults realize that sometimes we stifle creativity in children without even realizing it by the way we ask questions! (This led, in my class, into a great discussion about whether we share our fantasy thinking with our parents and how to let them know when we were making things up and when we were telling the truth.) ||


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The** **Cat in the Hat** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1957 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-90001-4 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I used this book to introduce Dr. Seuss' Beginner Books line. We talked about how he worked and worked to write an interesting book with a limited vocabulary and I shared an old Dick, Sally and Jane reader I had. We also discussed the question at the end of the book, "Would you?" It was fascinating to get insights into my new group of kids this way. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We then followed up the reading of this book by making a red and white hat pattern and a word strip that had -at words on it for the students to practice. It was also a great assessment for the second day of school to see who could make rhyming words with cat and hat, and who had any idea how to change the spelling to make rhyming words. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Teachers--FYI! There's an interesting article on the debate between phonics and whole language in the February 1997 issue of Better Homes and Garden called "Whatever Happened to Dick and Jane?" || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Cat in the Hat was written as an attempt to make readers more interesting than the old Dick and Jane readers that were available in the mid '50's. John Hersey, in Life magazine, asked that readers for beginners be made more stimulating and he suggested in an article that perhaps Dr. Seuss would like to try. Bennett Cerf, the publisher at Random House, challenged him to do it, and gave him a list of 225 words to use. While Dr. Seuss initially thought it would be easy to do, he found out the limited vocabulary made it extremely hard! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of the things I thought about trying was to give my children a list of 20 words and see what they could come up with as far as a decent story line went. Many teachers ask kids to put their spelling words into sentences or use as many as they can in a story. A great challenge for older kids would be to get them to see how few words they could use in a story and have the story still make sense!! ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Thidwick,The Big-Hearted Moose** Copyright:1948 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80086-9 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I used this book on the third day of school to talk about being kind and inclusive, but also standing up for your own rights. We discussed the classroom procedures we follow if we have a problem with someone. These steps were to 1. First, try to talk to the person bothering us. 2. If that doesn't work, then try to ignore the person bothering you. 3. If that doesn't work, then ask for help. (We also talked about how "ask for help" did not mean to tell the teacher, necessarily--that it could mean asking a friend to help you with the problem.) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Then, for homework, my kids had to go home and talk over with their parents what the term "big-hearted" meant. The next day we shared our understandings in another class discussion. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dr. Seuss got the idea for this book from doodling one day. He had gotten a phone call from a friend, Joe Warwick, and while he was talking, he doodled on a piece of paper. When he finished the conversation and looked at the drawing, he thought it sort of looked like a moose with a bunch of animals sitting on its head. Thus, grew the idea of Thidwick (who was initially called "Warwick" after the friend!) ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The** **Cat in the Hat Comes Back** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1958 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-90002-2 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When we read this book, I asked my kids about other books they had read that had the same characters. The discussion basically allowed me to assess my student's prior experiences and understandings of the term "character" and let me know other books they knew. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dr. Seuss was capitalizing on the interest shown by children in the first Cat in the Hat book when he wrote this sequel. He was truly interested in making beginning readers interesting to young readers, and, as president of Beginner Books with Random House, held high ideals and standards as to the tales he allowed to carry that name. ||


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The** **Foot Book** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1968 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80937-8 ||


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**(Teaching and Learning Goals)With this book, I assessed my students' understanding and knowledge of right and left. We traced our feet on different colors of construction paper and then, during Math, we sorted the piles according to left/right, size, colors, etc. When we finished manipulating them, we made a foot rainbow out of the different colors to hang in our room.I also read the book "How Big Is A Foot?" and then gave then children foot long strips of construction paper to measure things around the room. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts**(Background and Author's Message)Dr. Seuss introduced "the foot guy" in this book, but he's in several more of his books. Looking at different kinds of feet and the animals in this book make one realize how unique and how alike we truly are! ||


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The** **Shape of Me and Other Stuff** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1973 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-82687-6 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Our Art Teacher, Sue Oliveri, came in and read this book to the kids. After she read it, she organized them to cut and tear (mostly tear) scraps of colored paper to create their own "Bloggs." The results were wonderful! || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In 1972, Ted Geisel saw some black and white photos while he was in flight from Washington to California. He thought the photographs, done by Inuits from Northern Quebec, were incredible. While in flight, he experimented with silhouettes of the Cat and the Grinch and in 1973, a new book appeared--The Shape of Me and Other Stuff. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Fox in Socks** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1965 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80038-9 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">With "Fox In Socks" we made a pretend box ( a square out of construction paper) and cut a paper strip to go through it. On this strip, we made words that had the short o sound and then pulled them through and read them. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">TEXT ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1973 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-82719-9 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of the characters in this book painted the flagpoles every Sunday, so we talked about flags and why countries or cities had them. Then we designed classroom flags that told about our community of learners! || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Two weeks before Seuss' death he was asked by a newspaper if he had any messages he'd like to leave behind. He said, "The best slogan I can think of to leave with the U. S. A. would be: 'We CAN do, and we've GOT to do, better than this.'" ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Wacky Wednesday** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1974 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0394829123 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We read this on a Wednesday (of course) and then made our own Wacky Wednesday scenes to put in the hall outside of our classroom. Other books we talked about during this activity were the Waldo books and the "I Spy" books. We also talked some about how important it is to pay attention to details as you read and write. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">While this book is published under the name "Theo Le Sieg" just spell that name backwards. For a while, people thought that whenever Dr. Seuss used a pseudonym, it meant that someone else had done the illustrations. In Seuss' mind, it meant the book was of a different quality than those published under the name Dr. Seuss. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Bartholomew and the Oobleck** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1949 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80075-3 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book was a great introduction to making our own "Oobleck!" We used corn starch and just bit of water and then added food coloring to give it color. The kids had a great time exploring this mixture and discussing whether it was a liquid or solid! (I would suggest doing this outside with little ones. . . even when I did this activity in second grade, the powder (and eventually the oobleck) got all over my room!) || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dr. Seuss was stationed in France during World War II during a particularly persistent rain. He overheard two soldiers talking and complaining about the rain one night when one of them wished something other than rain would come down. Thus was born the idea for "Oobleck!" ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1938 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-84484-X ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Each child had brought in a brown paper bag, and our Art Teacher, Sue Oliveri, once again came in to help. She again used our scrap box, this time to help the kids make outlandish hats by rolling the bags over to make them shorter and then decorating them! With my substitute, Jeanne Seering, they encouraged the kids to let their imagination run wild! These hats were hilarious, but nothing would do but for my kids to have a parade of their own wearing their hats! (I think they even wore them to lunch!) Then they were displayed in our hall! || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book was Dr. Seuss's second children's book published. Dr. Seuss allowed the Children's Theater company in Minneapolis, Minnesota to be the only ones with rights to stage production of this book. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There's a **Lasting Lessons** teacher resource book called Caps, Hats and Monkeys that has some good ideas for follow up activities on a theme of "hats!" ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **If I Ran The Zoo** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1950 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80081-8 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">When we read this book, zoo building became the thing to do in the block area of my room! I certainly hadn't planned that, but it showed me how the kids were making sense of their world through play. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">As an organized class activity, though, we explored making silly animals by pairing up and one person drawing a head, then folding the paper over, so all the next person could see was the neck. The second person then drew a body, and then folded the paper over so the third person could only see the bottom of the body. That person then drew legs, and then we opened our sheets to see our finished creature. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Another activity we did was create a cage by folding a piece of construction paper in half and then cutting strips up the folded edge to within an inch of the other edges. Then we pasted the two edges onto another sheet where we had drawn the animal, with the folded edge (and thus the "bars" of the cage) sticking up from the paper. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It's pretty incredible, but Dr. Seuss told people that the reason his animals looked so fantastic because he really couldn't draw. In high school, even his teacher told him he couldn't draw--and she even suggested he skip art class. Click on the cat to go to some early drawings of the Cat in The Hat.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">

Dr. Seuss' father was the zookeeper in Springfield for a while. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Scrambled Eggs Super** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1953 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-90085-5 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We drew oval egg shapes out of white construction paper and then decorated then with crayons and markers. We then used this shape as a holder for words that had the short e sound on a strip we pulled through the egg as we read the words. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Another idea I had, but that we didn't take time to do, was to make eggshell mosaics. I've done this activity before, where kids saved eggshells (I encourage parents to run them through the dishwasher before sending them to school to avoid salmonella possibilities) and then we color them with foodcoloring and alcohol when they bring the shells into school. Then we crush the ones not already in pieces and use them for mosaic pictures. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Scrambled Eggs Super was a book that was supposed to be released in time for Christmas sales in 1953, less than eight years after the first atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time Seuss was writing this children's book, he was filming The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. He was so constrained by the film industry in his ideas of producing this film that he had great difficulty doing both and finishing the book, so his wife Audrey, made plans for them to visit Japan. Dr. Seuss was contracted by Life magazine to learn and write about how the years of American occupation of Japan had changed the aspirations of Japanese schoolchildren. Pages 136-137 in Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel tells what he found and gives details of how Americans influenced the Japanese schoolchildren just by being there! ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Green Eggs and Ham** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1960 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80016-8 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Of course! We made green eggs and ham! I'll never forget the first time I ever made green eggs and ham with a group of second graders in 1976. One of my kids said, "Hey! It's just like the book! We DO like green eggs and ham!" <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We also introduced the new Broderbund CD-ROM, Green Eggs and Ham I had just gotten by this title. My kids loved it--especially the skill games sprinkled throughout it! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Go to my Technology Tips on "<span class="wiki_link_ext">Talking Books " page to get some ideas of how we use CD-ROM books in my classroom. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book was written based on a bet with Bennett Cerf. After writing The Cat In The Hat, Cerf bet Dr. Seuss he couldn't do one using only FIFTY words. Dr. Seuss proved him wrong AND it became a best-seller! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Actually, I challenged several of my kids to find out how many different words this book DOES actually have. The answer is 51. . . and there are only 671 in the whole book! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Green Eggs and Ham has consistently been the best seller of all of Dr. Seuss' books! ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Horton Hatches the Egg** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1940 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80077-X ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The animal born from the egg in this book looked more like an elephant than a bird at the end of the story, so we had fun drawing pictures of things like a girafox, and an allimonk. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The idea for this book came from another time when Dr. Seuss was on the phone doodling. An open window nearby allowed a gust of wind to blow an elephant picture drawn on tracing paper to land on a tree the good Dr. was doodling. He then began thinking about why an elephant would be in a tree, and the idea for Horton hatching an egg was born! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">By the way, the sixteenth edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations includes references from this book and The Cat in the Hat ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Horton Hears A Who** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1954 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80078-8 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Superlatives were a good extension to this book. We studied the -er and -est endings on words and talked about different sizes of things. We compared weights and sizes in math of the three bear family manipulatives. There's a great book we used from Learning Resources called Bears, Boats and Catapults that has some nicely done extension activities. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Horton was Dr. Seuss' favorite character he made. He felt this book truly gave a message about the significance of EVERYONE--even the smallest among us. He wrote this book as a result of his visit to Japan, where the importance of the individual was just being discovered. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Want to see a picture of Whoville? Go learn about the tiny village of[| Hu] in Northern Norway. (You can also learn the history of the song sung in the grinches' story, Welcome, Christmas, too, while you're there! ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Oh, The Places You'll Go!** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1990 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-679-80527-3 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book gave us a perfect chance to explore dreams of what we wanted to be when we grew up. We wrote and talked about where we'd be and the places we'd go when we grew up! || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Oh, The Places. . . " was the last new book before Dr. Seuss' death--he was 87 when he died. It's touted as an adult book, too. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1990 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-679-80527-3 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">TEXT || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book, along with Green Eggs and Ham has been one of Dr. Seuss' best sellers of all times. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **If I Ran The Circus** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1956 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80080-X ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If I Ran the Circus is a great book for talking about imagination and rhyming. Catherine, one of my students, said Morris McGurk made up all those stories about Sneelock because he was comparing kids and adults and dreaming about what he'd be like when he was an adult. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In third grade, I used this book as part of a unit on simple machines--to look at the machines Dr. Seuss invented and drew and think about the simple machines within them. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dr. Seuss often joked that he couldn't draw--and said once that one reason he drew such strange looking animals was that he had no talent. In fact, he said, he'd much prefer to draw beautiful ladies--but he couldn't make the knees look right, so he drew silly animals instead. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **On Beyond Zebra** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1955 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80084-2 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">With the zany alphabet here, we tried to make up our own new letters. I'd suggest really sharing some ideas in a large group first--we apparently didn't do enough brainstorming, because this activity was really hard for first graders. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Bennett Cerf called Dr. Seuss a genius--but when Seuss heard this, he disagreed. Seuss told Cerf that words were a real struggle for him. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The Sneetches and Other Stories** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1961 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-90089-8 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We used this book to talk about predjudice. The star was symbol of superiority and we talked about how silly it is to judge people on superficial things. My children had several stories where they felt discriminated against just because they were small and that led to them realizing a similar message had been put forth by Dr. Seuss in "Horton Hears a Who." || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Dr. Seuss' German heritage was the basis of this book. As he got older, he wrote more books with moral messages, and this was one. When just a teenager in Springfield Massachusetts, he had to renounce his heritage and claim to be an American (instead of a German American) just to avoid trouble with being German at that time in history. ||


 * || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Yertle The Turtle and Other Stories** || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1958 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-80087-7 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Teaching and Learning Goals)
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Activities**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yertle and the other stories in this book all contain messages. Dr. Seuss believed in the competence of children and said they will look for the meaning and moral in everything they read. The writer's job, according to Dr. Seuss, is to convey that message and still create an enjoyable story readers will return to again and again. When I shared that with my kids, some began playing around with moral messages in their stories during writing workshop. || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Interesting Facts** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Background and Author's Message)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yertle's greed and his fall from power were a reaction to the facism of World War II. Dr. Seuss was asked, after the publication of Six By Seuss, which included //Yertle, Horton// and several others where he had any messages to give that he hadn't put in books yet. His response was that "We can. . . and we've **GOT** to do better than this." ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We also read the following books, but didn't do a follow up activity other than talk and discuss the book and its message. By the time we got to these books, frankly, I wanted to be reading other books and talking about other authors! <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(How about a comparison of her to Horton?) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-679-86712-0
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Daisy Head Maysie**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1995 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The Butter Battle Book**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-394-86580-4

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1984 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **The Lorax** (a book Dr. Seuss often claimed was his favorite one!) Click on the picture of the Lorax to go to a site that has the text of the book printed.

ISBN 0-394-92337-5

Copyright:1971 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Teacher Activity Books

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **On the Loose With Dr. Seuss**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Author: Shirley Cook

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-86530-233-2

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1994 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Dr. Seuss**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Author: John and Patty Carratello

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 1-55734-450-7

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1992 ||

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Biographies

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Author: Judith and Neil Morgan

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-306-80736-X

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1995 || <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Title: **Dr. Seuss**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Author: Ruth K. MacDonald

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ISBN 0-8057-7524-2

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Copyright:1988 ||