DOOR 2 DOOR STORYTIME

EARLY CHILDHOOD LITERACY SKILL: Phonological Awareness & Narrative Skill

BOOKS TO DISPLAY

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss     
Happy Birthday To You! by Dr. Seuss  
Dr. Seuss’s ABC by Dr. Seuss
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss   
Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! by Dr. Seuss
Ten Apples Up On Top! by Dr. Seuss
Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss

BASIC TIMELINE

1. Intro
2. Read-a-Loud Book
3. Flannelboard
4. Read-a-Loud Book
5. Flannelboard
6. Read-a-Loud Book
7. Flannelboard
8. Craft

READ-A-LOUD BOOKS

Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?: Dr. Seuss’s Book of Wonderful Noises by Dr. Seuss
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss

ACTIVITIES

Flannelboard: Five Little Cats (via Mel’s Desk)

One little cat on a sunny day
Put on his hat and went out to play
Two little cats when the sky turned dark
Put on their hats and went to the park
Three little cats when the sky turned blue
Put on their hats and went to the zoo
Four little cats by the kitchen door
Put on their hats and went to the store
Five little cats on a sunny day
Put on their hats and they all ran away.

Flannelboard: (part of) One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish
Black fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish
This one has a little star
This one has a little car
Say! What a lot of fish there are!

Flannelboard: (part of) Happy Birthday to You! by Dr. Seuss

If we didn’t have birthdays,
you wouldn’t be you.
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you do?
If you’d never been born,
well then what would you be?
You might be a fish!
Or a toad in a tree!
You might be a doorknob!
Or three baked potatoes!
You might be a bag full of
hard green tomatoes.

CRAFT: Dr. Seuss Birthday Card!

I had a bit of difficulty coming up with a storytime craft for NEA’s Read Across America Day. I had to discard a lot of expensive and impractical ideas. After a couple of Google and Pinterest searches I found images of beautifully decorated, Dr. Seuss inspired birthday cakes (1, 2, 3). I thought it would be a neat idea to have storytime attendees create birthday cards for Dr. Seuss…since the whole point of Read Across America Day is to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday (and instill a love of reading).

With this in mind, I created a basic tiered cake template with candles and balloons, and scanned it into the computer. Then, I printed multiple copies and cut them out to make assembly as easy as possible. I obtained Dr. Seuss birthday card printables from Seussville.com and cut those out as well. Star shaped stickers (The Dollar Tree $1), crayons, markers and colored construction paper were also provided. Overall, the craft went well. The ratio of children to adults at GBL works in my favor and made this paste heavy craft possible. The children had fun decorating their cards/cakes and using stickers. I  even had one sweet little girl dictate a personal birthday message to Dr. Seuss.

REVIEW:

As expected, it was a small group of children who attended storytime this past Saturday at GBL. All three kids were excited to read Dr. Seuss books in honor of his official birthday. Mr. Brown Can Moo was a great warm up book, and the children had fun mimicking different animal noises and assorted sounds. Green Eggs and Ham went over well. Unfortunately, their attention began to wander during One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish so we never made it to The Foot Book. My 5-8 year olds are aging out and being replaced with 3 year-olds. I modified the storytime outline after taking the needs of this younger demographic into account. The storyline for One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is more complex, and I think it works better as an abbreviated flannelboard story.

Surplus Dr. Seuss hats and stickers were given to each child as they left the library. So overall, I think the Branch Manager and I did a pretty good job honoring Dr. Seuss and ensuring our attendees had a blast.

Storytime birthday card crafts Door 2 Door Storytime Dr. Seuss early childhood literacy home school library narrative skill NEA phonological awareness Read Across America Day