Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss - March 2

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss - March 2

My daughter's 1st Dr. Seuss Celebration

I have been celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday with my daughter since 2007. We have made birthday cakes to eat while reading The Cat in Hat. We have traced our feet on construction paper, cutout the footprints, and placed them all over the basement while reading The Foot Book.  This year we started off our celebration by attending the Dr. Seuss Story Time at Target, a proud supporter of the NEA's Read Across America event.  My children received a goodie bag upon arriving with a juice box, snacks, crayons and activity sheets.  Also, there was a table covered with coloring pages, stickers and crayons.  Once a crowd of about 12 - 15 families arrived the Target employees took turns reading books by Dr. Seuss.  We stayed for about three books and then proceeded to do some shopping.  When we were finished shopping my daughter insisted upon returning to the Story Time area.  Families were still arriving at the event and the employees were still reading books!  I was very impressed with the Target employees and the efforts they put forth to promote reading. We will definitely try to attend this event next year.

My kids loved the coloring table.

This was a great activity even for my youngest!

This year we wanted to read books by Dr. Seuss that we hadn't read before like The Butter Battle Book, The King's Stilts, And To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street and Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  I found that I enjoyed reading these books just as much if not more than his books with tongue twisting rhymes.  Our favorite book in this group was Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  I thought it would be fun to make our own Oobleck to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday. The kids were amazed that we could actually make it; something that almost destroyed the Kingdom of Didd! All we needed was water, corn starch, and food coloring! The oobleck mixture is so strange and COOL!  It pours like a liquid, but when squeezed it becomes solid.  I found a great video of Oobleck on the MythBusters show which I embedded below. We watched this video before making the mixture and it gave my kids a great introduction to what they were about to make. Be prepared, if you watch the following video your child may say, "Can we fill a swimming pool with Oobleck?"  as my daughter did!

Here is the recipe we used. I found it on Food.com:

2 Cups Cornstarch

3 Drops Food Coloring

1 Cup Water

First, we added the food coloring to the water and then added it to the corn starch.

Once the water was added I took over the mixing from my daughter because she said it was too hard.

Lots of smiles!

Aprons were necessary with this activity.

It was fun to squeeze solid and then let it ooze out of our hands.

My daughter said, "Is this science?"

The more we worked with the Oobleck the better it got.  We may have had just a tad too much water to begin.

We even got my little one involved in this project.

The aftermath - messy, but cleaned up pretty easily with a spatula by scraping everything into the container.

I hope everyone has wonderful day reading on Dr. Seuss's birthday.  I get so excited hearing about how schools and families celebrate reading on this day.  I would love to hear your stories!


Links:

1. Happy Birthday Author Celebration 2010

2. Read Across America Website

3. 2011 Printable Activity Guide - Read Across America

3. Another Activity Guides - Target 2010

4. Seussville Read Across America info - Printable Certificates, etc.

5. Seussville - The Official Website of Dr. Seuss  - Great Video Page and Activities Page

6. Seussville Games

7. The Lorax - Google Video

8. Author Profile - About.com
9. Great Party Ideas - GoodLife Eats
10. Dr. Seuss in the Kitchen with your kids from the Hokey Pokey Kitchen - Cat in the Hat, Horton
11. Lorax Craft - Frugal Family Fun Blog

12. Ten Facts You Didn't Know - AbeBooks