Since March 2 was Read Across America Day, a celebration of Dr. Seuss’s birthday, I have been reading various Dr. Seuss books with 1st grade. Last week we read Oh, the Places You’ll Go and talked about how pictures can be a clue to a story character’s emotions. This week, we read Green Eggs and Ham. The story consists of only 50 words and lends itself beautifully to develop phonemic awareness — rhyming skills in this case (another great title for this lesson would the The Cat in the Hat). After reading, students brainstormed the different rhyming pairs Dr. Seuss used in the story.

A 1st grade teacher’s blog inspired this lesson. I created a Seuss hat template and added the words I will read to each hat section.

Using red markers, students then colored every other hat section in red. They used black markers to complete the I will read sentences by either using one of the rhyming pairs we had brainstormed or creating their own pairs.

Coloring can be such a Zen-like experience for the kids! It did not take long for one girl to sing “I will read, I will read” and so on (interesting melody, same lyrics) and for the rest of the class to chime in. A fun 30 minutes with a great group of kids!