Can you believe that it’s almost March?! March is one of our favorite months because we get to pull out all of our favorite Dr. Seuss activities to celebrate his birthday and Read Across America! This year, we’re taking it book by book and hope you’ll be able to find something that your kiddos will enjoy…

Yertle the Turtle

A great book about leadership, specifically how not to be a leader, Yertle the Turtle offers some fun learning opportunities for you and your kinders! Here are a few options you might think about...

Media Connection. To spice up story time, you might consider inviting a parent volunteer or special guest to come in and read to your kiddos. We also found an audio version of the book on YouTube. While it's not animated, it does show the book pages and text and could be a fun/unique reading option.

Main Idea. With some important themes you'll want to explore together, after reading the book, review the elements of a story and engage your kinders in a discussion of the main idea - i.e. the qualities of a good leader, bucket fillers vs. bucket dippers, etc. April over at Chalk Talk used the result of their discussion to create a fun anchor chart/classroom display.

Yertle the Turtle Writing Craftivities. Assess your kinders reading comprehension and build writing skills with one of these fun writing craftivities. Melissa of Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations invited her kiddos to write three reasons why Yertle was a bucket dipper. If you use this method for encouraging positive interaction in the classroom, this is a great way to help your kiddos make a connection with the story! We also found a FREE writing prompt over at Fun in First. Along with a fun craft, Jodi invited her students to think about the main character, deciding if Yertle was a good leader and providing details that support this position - i.e. listing his actions, attitudes, etc. Whichever you chose, we think these offer great opportunities for exploring the moral of the story, helping your kiddos become better readers, and improving writing skills.

Extension: If you're adding the craft to the writing activity, we found these fun turtle crafts that we know your kinders will enjoy! The bubble wrap turtle is from Mrs. T's First Grade and the cork stamped turtle shell was created by Susan Howard.

Numeral Stacking. Your kinders will have a blast creating their own turtle stacks, building numeral recognition and counting skills along the way! Cut simple turtles from green construction paper like the activity above from Learners in Bloom or find, shrink, and print turtle clip art for your kinders to number and stack.

Turtle Stacking. Create your own "Minute to Win It" game, inviting your kiddos to stack as many turtles as they can in one minute! A fun challenge for you little problem solvers, you might create paper bowl turtles like these from Fab in 5 or find something from around the classroom to stack. As an extension, we love what Melanie of My Catch a Star Classroom had her kiddos do. After the flurry of competition is over, consider inviting your kiddos to select an item from around the classroom, predict how many they think they'll be able to stack before their tower falls over, then count and see how close their prediction was. For all the details of this fun activity, be sure to check Melanie's blog!

We hope these resources were helpful! Have a Seuss-tastic celebration!