photo by mape_s www.flickr.com
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
*Picture book for preschoolers through second graders, fantasy
*Young boy as main character
*Rating: Dr. Seuss is at his best in If I Ran the Zoo–from made-up creatures to fantastical places to those ever-clever rhymes.
Short, short summary: Gerald McGrew says that his local zoo is a “pretty good zoo.” But it just has the normal, old animals that all zoos have. So, if Gerald ran it. . .he would do things a little differently. For example, he would travel up past the North Pole in his Skeegle-mobile and bring back a family of “What-do-you-know!” He would hunt in the mountains of Zomba-ma-Tant and even brave the blistering sands of the Desert of Zind. People from all over, of course, will want to see these amazing animals at the McGrew Zoo. And as he points out at the end, Gerald would just make a few changes to the zoo. (BTW, did you know that Dr. Seuss’s father actually ran a zoo in Springfield, Massachusetts for thirty years? Write what you know, everyone. 
)
So, what do I do with this book?
1. If I Ran the Zoo is full of Dr. Seuss’s wonderful illustrations. You can do two activities with illustrations. You can read the descriptions of a creature to your students and ask them to draw what they imagine. You can also ask them to create an animal for McGrew’s Zoo, name it, and even write a description–depending on their age and ability levels.
2. Students can write their own versions of If I Ran the Zoo by writing about what they would do with a zoo, or they can also change the place: If I Ran the School or If I Ran a Pizza Parlor. If you have young students, you can do this as a shared writing activity with the repeating sentence: “If I ran the zoo, I would have a ____________________.” If you have older students, they can create their stories themselves.
3. Some of the places such as the North Pole, Africa, and North Dakota are real (of course). Other places, it is clear that Dr. Seuss made them up. Ask your students to give you a thumbs-up if the place you are reading about is a real place (with made-up creatures) or a made-up place. You can also make a list of both on chart paper in a T-table. This can also lead to a discussion of what makes If I Ran the Zoo a fantasy even though parts of it are real.
Guest Blogger Rachael Walker is the Outreach Consultant for Reading Rockets, a national multimedia initiative which aims to inform and inspire parents, teachers, childcare providers, and others who touch the life of a child by providing comprehensive, accessible information on how to teach kids to read and help those who struggle. Rachael began her career in children’s literacy at Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), has also served as a consultant to the NEA’s Read Across America campaign, and was most recently the Executive Director of Reach Out and Read of Metro DC.
Know what 
today is? Dr. Seuss’s birthday! March 2 is the day that Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
It’s also Read Across America Day, the National Education Association’s annual celebration for toddlers, teens and everyone in between to celebrate their literacy and language skills and the joys of reading.
Besides all the Seuss silliness, the thing that I really love about the day is that it is a day of reading for everyone. Though the National Education Association originated and sponsors the celebration, everyone is invited to be in the company of a child and a book.
Looking for some last minute ideas to celebrate the day?
So what are you waiting for?
Spread the word, share a book
Make this campaign succeed
Give a Seuss birthday present
Help a child to read!
*Title from the Read Across America poem by NEA’s Anita Merina
photo by librarianjill www.flickr.com
Tomorrow is Dr. Seuss’s birthday, and children across the United States will be involved in Read Across America activities. But before I get into this, I want to announce the winner of the book giveaway contest I held on this blog last week. The winner is. . .Clara Gillow Clark. Thank you to everyone who left comments! I will be hosting another contest next week for a YA book as part of a WOW! blog tour, so stay tuned.
I love Read Across America day. When I taught remedial reading at David Barton Elementary School in Boonville, MO, we had a great celebration for Dr. Seuss. We all had these really cute t-shirts from NEA (and I swear to you that I am wearing mine as I type this post). Some teachers went a step farther and dressed up as Dr. Seuss’s characters such as the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2–even making their own blue wigs out of blue Easter grass. (Some people are just so creative–it makes you sick! ) We read Dr. Seuss books to kids that day, talked about his funny rhymes, voted on our favorite books in our classrooms, did Dr. Seuss activity sheets, and just celebrated reading. What a great day and a great message–celebrate reading!
It might be too late at your school, in your classroom, or with your home school to plan a big event for tomorrow like this, but you can still celebrate Dr. Seuss’s day and reading with simple activities like taking more time than usual for silent reading, sharing a favorite Dr. Seuss book with your students or children (even if they’re high schoolers), asking students to write a poem or story in Dr. Seuss style with silly made-up words, watching a Dr. Seuss movie and comparing/contrasting it to the book, or even asking children to write about their favorite Dr. Seuss book and why.
The National Education Association has some free resources on their website to use tomorrow. You can find bookmarks, a Read Across America poem, posters, booklists, and even information for parents (if you click on “For Parents” in the sidebar). Here are some Dr. Seuss books to check out, and you can find activities for some of his books on my blog by clicking on his name in the category list on the right-hand side bar. It’s super easy–just look under PICTURE BOOKS and then click on DR. SEUSS!
Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!
photo by mape_s www.flickr.com
