Stars on Sneetches

Dr. Seuss' birthday is on March 2, and we celebrate it at school every year by having reading activities and challenges the first week of March. In fact, most elementary schools celebrate reading that week as a result of his birthday, it's just more commonly referred to now as National "Read Across America" week. I was the Dr. Seuss Week Chairman for the third (and final) time at Terreton Elementary this past year, which was kind of a surprise to me. Truthfully, after doing it last year, I told the principal I was stepping down from the position, and that I would NOT be directing it this coming year. But as of January, nobody had volunteered to do it yet, and I had some new ideas for it, so I told him I would be the director for it one final time, which he was happy about! I'm actually SO glad I did it, too! This was my best theme/idea for it yet!! 

This year's theme was inspired by my trip to Universal Studios in Florida last fall. When Kimi and I were in the Dr. Seuss Land, one of the rides had murals of the story "The Sneetches" on the walls, so that as you progressed through the line, you could read the story while you waited. The Sneetches is not one of Dr. Seuss's more commonly well-known books, and I hadn't read it before. I was intrigued as I read the murals, and wanted to know how the story ended--but I had to wait until the ride was over because you don't see the last 2 pages (murals) until you get off the ride. 

I went to Universal Studios Florida to see the
Harry Potter World but the Dr. Seuss Land was
a fun surprise and was one of my favorite parts!

I LOVED the story and felt that the lesson the Sneetches learned was SO applicable to students at our school, too: it doesn't matter who you vote for (even though they can't vote yet, there was some MAJOR election propaganda happening in the elementary this year!), it doesn't matter your skin color, it doesn't matter your family structure or financial status, we are all members of our school, and we need to value each other as part of our team rather than focusing on our differences and using those differences to divide us. In our kick-off assembly, I showed the students a YouTube video of the book being read aloud by a man, and then we discussed the lesson learned. It's a short story, but the students really understood the lesson being taught (Thanks, Dr. Seuss!). 

I used the Sneetches story as my theme, and we focused a lot on the Star symbol throughout the week. Our most recent PBIS program was called RISE-UP, an acronym that stands for 6 qualities we hoped the students would learn and use at school. This past year, I also introduced the acronym STARS to that PBIS theme (I was also the PBIS Chairman) and it stood for Students That Apply RISE-UP. Since we've already used star symbols in a lot of our PBIS prizes during this past schoolyear, I thought the Star that the Sneetches had on their belly was a great tie-in. I used the format that I created for The Grinch reading challenge I gave to the 3rd and 4th graders in December (CLICK HERE to read more about The Grinch) as the basis for the Dr. Seuss week challenge. Each letter in the word STARS represented a type of book that the students needed to read. I created more generalized categories, in order to fit all the reading abilities between Kindergarten and 4th grade. The categories were: S=Short book by Dr. Seuss, T=Tall book by Dr. Seuss, A=Animal non-fiction, R=Reader's Choice, and S=Silly book. After the students read each type of book, they filled out a simple book report. I created tri-fold pamphlets that listed all the instructions on the front, and had five differentiated book reports on each of the other sections. I created 4 different pamphlets/book report outlines to accommodate all the different learning levels/abilities: one for Kindergarten, one for 1st grade, one for 2nd grade, and this one for 3rd & 4th grade (the 5th and 6th graders opted to not join in Dr. Seuss week this year): 

This was the front of the tri-fold

My first 3 book reports on the inside of the
3rd/4th grade book report pamphlet:

The objective was for students to read one book from each of the 5 categories and complete all 5 book reports within 5 days. If they did, they would earn 5 prizes (since the star has 5 points on it, that was the magic number). If ALL the elementary students completed the challenge, ALL the students would have a "Sneetches Frankfurter Party" (just like the Sneetches on the Beaches did in the book) later that spring. I created classroom banners and hung them in the hall outside the gym, and every student cut out and wrote their name on a yellow Sneetch and attached it to their class banner. Once a student completed the challenge, they earned a green star to put on their Sneetch's belly, and everyone could see who earned their Star.  

The Kindergarten students put green stars on the yellow banner
rather than cutting out Sneetches like the other grades. 

The banners took the entire hallway that borders the gym.

A few years ago, one of the Dr. Seuss week challenges was a competition between the classes of who could read the most Dr. Seuss books, and I hadn't thought the process through completely, because there was a couple of classes who checked all the Dr. Seuss books out of the school's library, and it left the other classes with hardly any options of books to read. I was smarter about it this time around. I checked out every Dr. Seuss book from our school's library, checked out a TON from the Salmon Public Library, and added my entire personal collection to the stack. From there, I separated all the books into the 2 categories that the students were required to read and divvied them equally between the elementary teachers. I had a spreadsheet so I would know what books each teacher had, so that after the week had ended, I would know who had what (in case I was missing a library book that was checked out in my name, I knew who would have it). It worked out much better that way! All the teachers were grateful to have a stack of Dr. Seuss books available in their classrooms for the week, and it gave the students equal opportunity to complete the assignment!

"Short" books by Dr. Seuss that I divided between the teachers

"Tall" books by Dr. Seuss that were divided among the classrooms

In addition, we also had dress-up days every day to get the kids excited: STAR day (wear clothes with star designs, sequins, and/or glitter), SO BRIGHT day (wear neon or brightly colored clothes and/or sunglasses), SILLY day (wear silly clothes/socks, crazy hair, and/or clown makeup), and SEUSS Character day (dress up like a character from Dr. Seuss's books). 

My class on SILLY day

SO BRIGHT day

My students who dressed up for SEUSS Character day

Dr. Seuss week this year was a HUGE success!! The kids LOVED earning their Star and putting it on their Sneetch's bellies. Some of the Sneetches already had stars on it after just 2 days of school! In addition to the star placed on the Sneetch, the students also earned a Star medal that they got to hang around their necks, 2 Starbursts, and a Dr. Seuss bookmark (thanks to the PTO, who purchased the prizes). By the end of the week, there was less than 10 students who hadn't earned their Star yet, and in every case, it was because the student was absent one or more days, so I gave them an extra week to complete the requirements. I am so happy to report that we had 100% of our students, in grades K-4th, complete the challenge!!! I was blown away with how well it all turned out, and was so excited, along with all the students, for our Sneetches Frankfurter party (which we had a month later, and I'll post about it later!). 

Check out all those green stars!!