Timeless Ways to Say: Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Yesterday I looked at the copyright problems of celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Today let's look at some fun ways that may avoid those problems.

If you want creative thinking, ask Storytellers.  On the international email list, Storytell, we heard the announcement of the Dr. Seuss exhibition, Hats Off to Dr. Seuss!, so we started getting a variety of suggestions and comments, starting with hats.

Yes, that's Dr. Seuss in one of his many hats!

• "The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" was inspired in part by Dr. Seuss's love of hats and his own collection, so you might start collecting hats in places missed by the exhibit. 
• Hold a campaign to find 500 hats .. children can make hats;  children can make up stories about hats. 
• People can send you hat recollections; Hat making tales; Myths about the origin of hats.
• Papa Joe replied with the perfect counterpoint to Bartholomew Cubbins, the equally classic
  
  
  book by Esphyr Slobodkina, Caps for Sale, which Wikipedia tells us "sold more than two million copies and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Caps for Sale won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958."  Papa Joe admitted he " might only now own a half a dozen hats,but once sold caps. And yes, I wore them all on my head and walked around the grounds.  'Caps for Sale! Caps for Sale! Fifty Cents a Cap!' "

Talking about the visual importance of Dr. Seuss, both Papa Joe and Nick Smith felt the illustrations were necessary to their telling. 

I would like to suggest some other options beyond the "finger twister" of signing Green Eggs and Ham I  mentioned in the first part of my two looks at celebrating Dr. Seuss.

• I especially love the collection of short stories, The Sneetches and Other Stories and, of course, Dr. Seuss's illustrations are a large part of the fun, but it's good for kids to make their own pictures in their minds, too.  For the title story, they can have stars in hand to go along with you as they "go on again, off again, through the machine they raced round and about again."  (Of course at some point -- you choose before or after -- it's good to picture the star on and the star off machines and also those "snooty old smarties.")  
• Another story in that book I dearly love is "What Was I Scared Of?"  Ask the kids if they know Dr. Seuss once wrote a spooky story and how they can tell it, too.  Some stiff construction paper or, better yet, card stock can let them trace around their fingers to make their own spooky pants to tape on their fingers after you tell it to show what a great finger puppet it makes.

Of course the brainstorming doesn't stop there.

• If storytellers want to live dangerously, Charles Kiernan suggested the perfect "nightcap", the Doctor's own prescription, The Sleep Book.  Charles promises "It works every time on stubborn-to-go-to-sleep children." 

At the risk of putting you to sleep, I found additional resources beyond storytellers

•  
  
  has this article, "5 Ways to Celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday" -- that link is the one for teachers, but using the search Celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday  Scholastic claims to have 137! activities for librarians. It really is a broader search than just our topic, but it has a lot for the Seuss celebration.
• Also aimed at teachers and homeschoolers is Apples for the Teacher's
  

  

  ( Apples for the Teacher)

  Dr. Seuss Day page of games and activities.

• About.com's Parenting section includes Family Crafts and while "Celebrate Dr. Seuss' Birthday in March"  is geared to families, there's nothing to stop others from using the page full of ideas.  It also is just one in a series of craft ideas for holidays throughout the year.

• Pinterest's bulletin board is also jam-packed with ideas . . . hmmmm "jam-packed" sounds like some of the recipes there!

While I was prowling around, Dr. Seuss Day helped me discover Daysoftheyear.com, a calendar to browse if you're looking to find events happening on a specific day or you can register and this "ultimate resource for worldwide events, festivals, funny, weird, and wonderful Days of the Year" promises you'll "never miss a day."  I could have used this rival of Chase's Calendar of Events back when planning library programs for specific dates.

I guess it's time to have Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, get my own wishes

After dying in 1991 at age 87, virtual greetings are in order for a truly Timeless author!

15 Five Star Fairy Tale Activity Sources

At one time fairy tales were the deadest section in children's libraries, but I found activities in 15 sites and books proving it no longer needs to be true.

• Storytelling friend, Mary Grace Ketner, of the Fairy Tale Lobby in "Are fairy tales still worth telling?" talked about the importance of fairy tales in her work with middle schoolers and beyond.  Recently she passed along a great idea for a fairy tale activity to the email list, Storytell.  It's sure to lobby young readers to try fairy tales.  She reported:

Some of y'all may have met my friend Sue Kuentz, a librarian who facilitates our local Texas Storytelling Youth Challenge.  In an email a day or two ago, she mentioned that her kids held a "Fairy Tale Bowl." What's that? I asked.  Her answer:
The Fairy Tale Bowl was brought into our district about 3 years ago. Our 2nd graders' TEKS involve fairy tales and folk tales, characters, setting, problem, solution, compare and contrast, and elements of these two genres.

So, as a celebration, the librarians put together this bowl in which the students are asked to read anywhere from 10 - 15 fairy tales/folk tales either in the class or at home (each school varies their titles). On a particular date, we hold the bowl in which all of 2nd grade dresses as a character in one of the tales. 4 representatives from each class participate in the bowl with our quizco buzzer system. There's 4 rounds of questions and 2 Lightning Rounds of questions. The winning team collects the most points and wins a class trophy, medals. All the kids who participated receive ribbons and certificates. Just a fun way to wind up the TEKS studied.  This was my first year to do it. Seemed too easy for the kids so I think I'll include some fractured tales next year.

This bowl is similar to our Battle of the Books for 3rd and 4th grade except we don't take points away for wrong answers in the Fairytale Bowl.

That's it in a nutshell.

Sue Kuentz, Librarian
Tuscany Heights Elementary  

Here are 14 other books and websites with great activities the Fairytale Bowl idea challenged me to find.

• This is the first of Kathy Ross's excellent books.

• Fairy Tale Land has activities for: Ugly Duckling; Little Red Riding Hood; Jack and the Bean Stalk; Gingerbread Man; Goldilock and the Three Bears; Cinderella; Sleeping Beauty.  Crossword puzzles must be done in Internet Explorer 5 or higher.  Some of this British site is clearly only for schools, but I especially liked the Fairytale Frames for use whether in a library, school, and beyond.  

 

• by Avery Hart, Paul Mantell and Michael Kline

• Fairy Ideas  This page has “Fairy Tale Head Bands” at its start, but it’s way more than that, including a large medieval section, dramatic play ideas, and ideas related to these tales: 3 Little Pigs; Cinderella; Peter Pan/Pirates; Alice in Wonderland; Little Red Riding Hood; Jack in the Beanstalk; Gingerbread Man/Boy.

• by Kathy Ross

• Changing Roles  Don’t let the lesson plan format stop you if you’re not a teacher as this works with a variety of ages, tales, and beyond the classroom.

• Kathy Ross on fairies as opposed to specific tales

• Fairy Tale Quiz  There are some real toughies in these 24 questions even for fairy tale fans, but you might know a few already...the rest should challenge you to dig up the answer.

• Anna Llimos also created Medieval Castle Adventure Crafts

•  Fairy Tales Theme  This says Preschool Activities and Crafts, but primary and elementary grades would be able to use many, too. Covers 17 Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Tall Tales, and Legends, plus the site has other sections on the site about Fables,  Nursery Rhymes, and Legendary Animals.  This site has several alphabet lesson plans, crafts, and printable activities, including coloring sheets, so it’s a good place to check for handouts.  There even are a few science, social science, and safety ideas.

•   ABC Teach - Fairy Tales Theme  ABC Teach offers a lot more to its paid members, but still there are available free items of slightly less than 1/3 of nearly 100 handouts and printables ranging from preschool through 8^th grade as this site is aimed at teachers, parents, and homeschoolers.  

• Not strictly fairy tales, but Kathy Ross's Crafts from Your Favorite Nursery Rhymes is planned for the preschool set and many activities also fit fairy tales for the youngest.

• Perpetual Preschool Fairy Tales   If you work with young children and don’t yet have the entire Perpetual Preschool site bookmarked, why are you waiting?!?  Readers suggest Songs, Snacks, Art, Science, Games, and more.  It even gives the email address of the person suggesting so you may contact them for further information.  An outstanding resource for early childhood work/play!

King of the fractured tales at Scholastic's site

• Scholastic's Myths, Folktales, and Fairy Tales  These are writing activities – noticing among other storytellers and authors the ever popular, John Sciezka, I admit to enjoying fractured folktales, but they always should only follow after the original is known.

While researching this I repeatedly found broken links on various sites.  Perhaps the education field is an area that changes frequently. If you discover any broken links, please let me know and I will update this article.  

LoiS(peaking of updating, fellow storytelling friend and blogger, Karen Chace, has been mentioned here before, but she just published some great Fairy Tale lesson plans at Catch the Story Bug! "Fun in the Classroom with Folktales & Fairytales" )

Nocturnal Animals "Own the Night"

The Collaborative Summer Library theme for the 2012 reading program is "Own the Night" and nocturnal animals are a natural connection for both libraries and naturalists.  This summer I will tell tales of nocturnal animals found here in Michigan, but these stories come from all around the world.

Why?

My mission in storytelling is to increase understanding through stories from around the world and back through time. 

To help you discover and understand how nocturnal animals Own the Night! here are some online resources.  (There are different nocturnal creatures in different parts of the world and, while my stories come from all over, I chose sites tending to focus on our own area.  This helps your young readers and listeners better understand the nocturnal animals already around them.)

Google gives these as "Top references for nocturnal animals"  Owl, Bat, Raccoon, Skunk, Opossum, Cat, Hedgehog, Badger, and Firefly, but don't stop there! Other possible creatures include mouse, fox, wolf, coyote, moth, tree frog, cockroach, and I'd certainly add the Unofficial Michigan State Bird, the Mosquito!

FACTS

• List of nocturnal animals -- This international listing upfront declares it's incomplete, but you can click on any animal for a Wikipedia article. 
• Nocturnality -- Yet another Wikipedia article, this one shows why nocturnal creatures benefit from this adaptation.
• Homeschool Share on nocturnal animals -- This is both an overview and has a special featuring of owls and bats.
• Nocturnal Habits of Nighttime Animals -- Specific to Michigan, this looks at flying squirrels, whippoorwills, tree frogs, and great horned owls.  So that's why those crows I saw made such a fuss!

STORIES

• Franklin and His Night Friend -- Picture book favorite character, Franklin, makes friends with a bat.
• Nocturnal Animals poems -- These are not stories, but poems, especially about owls and bats.  (Thank heavens for the Wayback Machine's archiving the internet!)
• Story-Lovers S.O.S. -- Searching Out Stories lists books, online stories, and much more.  Drop down to section 2 "Animals, Birds, Amphibians, Fish and Insects" and search by specific nocturnal animal.

CRAFTS

• Enchanted Learning's coloring sheets of nocturnal animals from all over the world.  Click on the creature, e.g., skunk, for facts and a coloring sheet.
• A to Z Teacher Stuff -- raccoon, crocodile, bat, and owl activities suitable for young children posted by Ms. Ann.

MUSIC

• Children's Music by Nancy Stewart -- practical activity ideas and an easily adaptable song about nocturnal animals.
• University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee -- music video of common nocturnal animals animated by puppet performers (Peck School of Arts)
• Peter Weiss and his band, The Earth Rangers singing at Westlake Elementary School in Santa Cruz, CA (2007) a song about nocturnal animals.

GAMES

• Sheppard Software Seek and Find Nocturnal Animals -- simple game for young children identifying hidden animals.

•  Kids Planet - Who Am I? -- 20 different animal sounds to identify.

• Amsel, Sheri. “Word Searches and Crossword Puzzles.” Nocturnal Animal Word Search (Older Readers). Exploring Nature Educational Resource. © 2005 - 2011. November 2, 2011.

CURRICULUM IDEAS

Teachers aren't the only ones who can use these ideas.  Scan for good ideas to use also in libraries and nature centers.

• Alex (Alabama Learning Exchange) for elementary school age
• Night, Nocturnal Animals, and Halloween for preschool and primary grades
• Lesson Planet  210 lessons on nocturnal animals for all grades

"EVERYTHING UNDER THE MOON!"

Isn't it wonderful when you can recycle your programs?  Children's programs for preschoolers used 4 years ago can return and be used again with a whole new audience of preschoolers.  In 2008 Who's Awake at Night? was the theme for the Michigan Reads program.  The Michigan Reads pdf provides recommendations for books, crafts, music, games, fingerplays, and coloring sheets to help you plan your Summer Reading program to Own the Night..

Update to "Puzzled by the New Year's Possibilities?"

Puzzles are great handouts for programs and a fun way to review learning.  Here are a quartet of new ideas worth adding to my December 2010 post, "Puzzled by the New Year's Possibilities?" which looked at a variety of ways to make puzzles.

Who hasn't looked at clouds and identified them as shapes?  A favorite picture book is the 1947 book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw.  If you Google the title you will find printables, lesson plans, a few YouTube videos, and a variety of activities.  Its useful for teachers, librarians, and nature centers, but the sky isn't the only place the shapes of clouds may affect us.

Have you ever seen or made a Wordle?  Wordles produce a free-form graphic of the words you use. The creators of Wordle call it a "word cloud". Additionally some use it as a means of text analysis.  There's even a Wordle users forum, useful for solving problems such as coloring, printing, saving, or editing a Wordle.  The forum goes beyond the site's FAQ to resolve such issues for more advanced uses.

The creator of Wordle calls Tagxedo  "Not so much an 'alternative' to Wordle as much as 'Wordle - the next generation'."  Tagxedo takes those free-form shapes of Wordle and gives the option of using related shapes.

I love these suggestions from Tagxedo (but they would also work with Wordle or Tagul) for Early Childhood usage: 

• Turn a familiar song into a Tagxedo
• Ask child to recognize words (and provide ample hints)
• He/she will soon get it and eager to guess the words
• Ask him/her to sing it out loud while pointing at the words
• Build confidence and interest in words
• Fun game to play
• Ask child his favorite songs to play the game with

On a personal note, I found getting to the shapes for Tagxedo at first a bit confusing.  Here's how I finally created it.

1. My sample uses those Early Childhood suggestions. 
2. I saved the words in a Word document before inserting them in the Create page. 
3. "Load" produces a menu, but the Silverlight box kept coming insistently onto the Enter Text box.  Finally I just copied the words from my Word document, then put my cursor -- such an apt name! -- in the Enter Text box, clicked both Control and V to paste them into the box.  (So often when something refuses to Paste I find using Control/V works around that problem.)
4. Clicked Submit.
5. On Layout Options I chose Hard Boundary as it made the shape more obvious; White Friendly so the Tagxedo format would show up here; then Accept.
6. Clicked the arrow next to Shape to see a wide assortment of simple shapes.
7. I selected Apple.

If you create or maintain a website and would like a "rollover" word cloud for websites, Tagul is worth exploring.  You can get various fonts, colors, and even a few shapes.  Tagul has a blog to keep you aware of new developments, FAQ section, and a Forum for its users.  Personally I prefer the simplest of rollovers to get to a specific page within a website, but a shaped word cloud on your homepage may be something you want to spice up a plain site.

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Don't be puzzled . . .

Storytelling is adaptable to almost any theme and talks directly to your audience.  LoiS has a wide variety of existing programs or can create one just for you.  A sampling can be found at Programs A to Z . 

Call 248-625-5848 or email LoiS-sez@LoiS-sez for more information.

Puzzled by the New Year Possibilities?

Putting the World Together Is a Puzzle
By: Author Unknown
A mother had a lot of work and her little boy wanted a lot of attention.  To keep him busy she took a magazine with a large map of the world on the cover and tore it up into small pieces.She told her little boy it was a map of the world, and that by the time he could put it back together, she would play with him. She was sure this would keep the child busy a long time.
Not much time later the boy came to his mother and said, "I put it together. Can we play now?"
She was surprised and said, "That's impossible. Show me." It was true, the picture of the world was all put together perfectly.
The mother figured her son was a genius and asked, "How did you do it so quickly?" The boy answered, "It was simple. On the back of the page was a picture of a man. When I put the man together the whole world fell into place."

******

Starting a new year or a new project is always puzzling.  Why not offer puzzles to people coming to your programs or your students?  Many can be made to match your theme.

TANGRAMS

• Puzzlemaker  is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and parents. Create and print customized word search, criss-cross, math puzzles, and more—using your own word lists. Discovery Education also sells a CD-ROM with extra features and clip art.
• Want a high quality crossword puzzle?  Cnet's Download.com, the biggest download site on the internet named  EclipseCrossword  one of "The best free software products" in the games category.  (Requires download, but is free.)
• For other crossword puzzlemaking reviews to decide which crossword puzzle creator best suits your needs, try Puzzle Software Review.
• Make Your Own Jigsaw Puzzle
•  Tangrams are an old seven piece puzzle that can create many pictures. Click on the pink triangle for a Tangram story; on the blue triangle for your pattern. 
• Looking for an online way to put a jigsaw puzzle together?  At Jigsaw Planet use existing pictures or one from your own files.  You control difficulty and shapes.
• Unlike the sites for making puzzles, if you're hooked on playing word games, Word Buff  is for you with strategies for people who play word games to win.
• For games,  Family Crafts - Homemade Games gives holiday and assorted other ideas for children and families.
• One very simple idea, useful even with young children, never was found in my search.  Take several large tongue depressers and glue them to the back of a picture, cut the picture apart.  (Children unable to cut this apart with scissors will do the activity up to this point, letting an adult or older child cut, then they can mix the pieces, and put it back together.)  

There now is an update with additional puzzle ideas in my May 2011 post.  ENJOY!

 ******

Don't be puzzled.  

Storytelling is adaptable to almost any theme and talks directly to your audience.  LoiS has a wide variety of existing programs or can create one just for you.  A sampling can be found at Programs A to Z . 

Call 248-625-5848 or email LoiS-sez@LoiS-sez for more information.

p-art images.