To celebrate one of history’s most influential
children’s authors, we’ve been reading a Seuss story each day in class this
week. Of course the kids love it, but it also offers so many teaching and
learning opportunities too. Here are a couple of the things we did with Seuss
week this year:
Story Elements-
Dr. Seuss books are the perfect tools for
teaching key story elements like characterization, plot, rising
action/climax/falling action, conflict, and the hardest one of them all- theme.
All you need is a mini-lesson to review story elements and then you follow it
with a Seuss read-aloud or even a youtube ebook, and BAM, they get it. With
books like The Lorax and Star Bellied Sneetches, this stuff literally
teaches itself. Below is a copy of the prezi I found on story elements along
with the story map that I created to go along with The Lorax. I’ve also added
the ebook that we used in class so you won’t have to go on a hunt for it.
Figurative Language-
Everyone knows that Dr. Seuss is a master
rhymer, but sometimes we miss the chance to show other figurative language
techniques that he uses to our students. I had one of those ah-ha moments about
2 weeks after Dr. Seuss week last
year and could have kicked myself for not seizing the moment. This year, I was
ready though, so today we watched this killer video put out by the folks at
flocabulary.com on figurative language and again, followed it up with a Seuss
story to see what kinds of examples we could find. If you haven’t seen this
already, it’s well worth the 3 minutes.
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