TRC Read to Kids

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Monday, February 13, 2012

Read Across America: Celebrating Dr. Seuss

The big day is coming right up--Read Across America Day 2012 is right around the corner!

Read Across America, celebrated on March 2 in honor of Dr.Seuss' birthday, is a reading awareness program that calls for every child in every community around the country to celebrate reading.

The theme of Read Across America this year is "green" in honor of the film adaption of The Lorax, which will open on March 2 as well.

Since TRC's Read-Alouds take place four nights a week, we will be celebrating Read Across America Week during the week of February 27. Take the opportunity to do a nature themed Read-Aloud:


The Lorax, by beloved children's author Dr. Seuss, tells the story of the Lorax, who "speaks for the trees" in this story that talks about deforestation and environmental degradation in language and pictures that anyone can understand. Because The Lorax is one of Dr. Seuss' longer books--and because it is fairly text heavy--try clipping pages together if there are sections you feel you can skip over. You can read just a few pages, or read only parts of pages--be creative and do whatever you need to do. 




Tell Me, Tree: All about Trees for Kids by Gail Gibbons is a nonfiction book with colorful pictures that introduces young readers to the parts of trees and how they fit in nature. It even features a section about how to make your own tree identification book and is perfect for kids who are eager to learn. Making tree identification books and going outside to see what kinds of trees are nearby are great activities to go along with this story.




The Listening Walk, by Paul Showers, tells the story of a father and daughter who go on a walk. As they go through the neighborhood with their dog, Major, they see what they can hear in nature--and it turns out they can hear a lot! Go on a short listening walk on your own and see what you and your readers can hear.






Most of Dr. Seuss' books are quite text heavy, so to celebrate Read Across America and Dr. Seuss with a younger audience that may not be ready for The Lorax, try these other Seuss books:

Green Eggs and Ham 
For a snack, green hard-boiled eggs are always a winner!

If I Ran the Zoo 
What weird animals can the kids come up with? Have them draw pictures, make up names and introduce their animal creation to everyone else.

Fox in Socks 
Take advantage of all that Dr. Seuss has given us in his stories: whisper and shout, speed up and slow down, have the kids try saying the rhymes and tongue twisters: 
"When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle, THIS is what they call...a tweetle beetle noodle poodle bottled paddled muddled duddled fuddled wuddled fox in socks, sir!"
If THAT won't get them to laugh, then NOTHING will!

The fact that Read Across America Day is a national effort to celebrate reading may appeal to kids--so make sure they know about it, and know that they're part of something special. For ideas for fun activities, including the Reader's Oath, go to the National Education Association website.  If those ideas aren't enough for you, check out this blog entry for more.

Post by The Reading Connection intern Anna McCormally.


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