Celebrating Seuss

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. GEISEL: March 2 marks the birthday of Theodor (that's right, no 'e' on the end) Seuss Geisel, much more commonly known as Dr. Seuss. Naturally, this meant we had to started the morning by listening to/singing along with the Grinch's theme song (You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel Mister Gri-inch!) sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, the original voice of Tony the Tiger. Oh yeah, nothing like a little Grinch to get one's day off to a sunny start!

We own a copy of Dr. Seuss' "If I Ran the Circus," so the kids and I read that together. It, of course, features that sing-songy, tongue-twisty rhyming style so distinctly Seussian. I made sure to point out to the kids that often Dr. Seuss would bend the rules, making new words as he went along so that his verse would work. For instance, "Why, ladies and gentlemen, youngsters and oldsters, Your heads will quite likely spin right off your shouldsters!"

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, we enjoyed animated versions of several Seuss stories, including Green Eggs and Ham, where the moral of the story is, "It's good to try new things," sums up Annabelle.

"It's a matter of taste," said CJ. "You never know what it will taste like," CJ concluded.

We also watched The Cat in the Hat (part 1 & part 2) where the message is that if you want loads of excitement and fun, you should let strangers in the house while your parents are gone. :-0

I learned a couple of interesting factoids about Dr. Seuss today, including that his father and grandfather were brewers in Massachussets, where Geisel (1904-1991) was born. I also learned that the impetus for Geisel's pen name has its roots in youthful indescretion. While attending Dartmouth College, Geigsel wrote for the school's humor magazine, Jack-o-Lantern, eventually becoming its editor-in-chief. However, when he was caught drinking (and it was the era of Prohibition) he was forced to quit writing for the magazine. His workaround: Writing under the pen name Seuss, his middle name (and his mother's maiden name).

On Seussville, the official Web site of all things Seussian, we found an online game where the kids had to match characters with the title of the Seuss book they "starred" in.
(black and white photo of Ted Geisel above from the Library of Congress)

READ ACROSS AMERICA: Celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday has morphed into a nationwide event. March 2 is also the National Education Association's "Read Across America" day.

In the course of reading about Read Across America, I found a few more great resources for future reference. They include ReadWriteThink , a partnership of the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and others. There are lesson plans, activities, games, and more on their content rich Web site.

I also discovered Reading Rockets, a national multimedia project that looks at how young kids learn to read, why some struggle, and how adults can help. Its site content includes contests, curriculum ideas, teaching strategies, videos and podcasts (including authors of popular children's books). It just goes wonderfully on and on. (Thankfully, I was able to become a Facebook fan of both sites, so it will be easier for me to a) remember they exist and b) prompt me to check them out more often.

Yet another site we discovered is A to Z Teacher Stuff, featuring thousands of pages and hundreds of lesson plans to explore.

To shine the spotlight even more brightly on reading today, we turned to a BrainPOP video about study and reading skills. The entertaining animated film featured handy tips about how to get the most out of what you're reading (including skimming, taking notes, talking about it with others). Good stuff for the kids to know, for sure.

DAFFYDILS: Last night, while perusing The Columbian newspaper online, I came across a story about an old homestead on Felida (our old stomping grounds!) where around 15,000 daffodils grow on 1 3/4 acres each year. The public is invited to pick them for 50 cents a dozen.

I read the comments about the story, and one writer mentioned, "When we were kids we would put food coloring in the water and the Daffodils would pick some of it up and get stripes in them."

Hmm. That sounded like an interesting (and simple!) experiment for the MPA student body, so as we took our midday walk, I kept an eye out for daffodils growing on city property. Fortunately, I found a pair under a tree in Bayview Park. I hesitated for a moment before picking them (after all, they belong to the whole city, right?), but then I decided that it would be OK of I "worked" for them, so I spent the next 15 minutes pulling ivy off tree trunks. Debt to society paid. :)

We brought the daffodils home, made a clean cut on their stems and CJ chose to put his in blue water. Annabelle chose red (hoping it would actually turn into a pink flower). The flowers have been in the colored water for seven hours now, and they haven't perceptibly changed. But we're not giving up on them yet. We'll see if any magic happens overnight. (It also occurs to me tonight as I re-read the color-striped comment that perhaps they were actually watering the daffodil bulbs in the ground with colored water. Hmm. Maybe I was too quick to pick the daffodils!)

THE LITTLE THINGS: This afternoon I overheard height-challenged Annabelle say, "Darn it! I can't get my banana in the compost bin." CJ immediately stopped what he was doing and said, "Here, let me help you with that," and went in for the assist. Nice.

GREEN FEAST: For dinner tonight, we obviously had to have Green Eggs and Ham. As soon as we got home from yoga, we whipped our kitchen into a green frenzy. First we got the ham steak frying in a pan, and Annabelle slathered a sea of green industrial strength food coloring atop it! The ham went into the warming oven and then it was time to scramble some eggs and flood them with green, too.

Because I had a very strong inkling that CJ would be down with neither green eggs nor ham, I also made some green pancakes for good measure. As it turned out, it's a good thing I did. CJ did give green eggs and ham the tiniest little try, but that was it. On the other hand, Thing 1 asked for seconds!

BTW, if you haven't seen or heard Jesse Jackson read Green Eggs and Ham, you NEED to.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE: I couldn't help but notice the headline "Homeschooling: German Family Gets Political Asylum in U.S." on the front page of Yahoo! news today. It was an interesting article.