Read Across America Day Celebration!

We finally thought ahead and came up with a plan! We challenged the students to read 4,000 Accelerated Reader points during a three week period, the motivation being that they could wear pajama pants today. They managed to accumulate over 6,500 points! Along with reading time in language arts class being saved up for today, I also issued passes to read IN the library for teachers to hand out to students who have been doing an especially good job. Normally, we are too busy to let students hang out in the library, but we were trying to recreate the elementary school Read Across America Days with pillows and all day reading.

This works, and hopefully it's something that I can do every year. I have the Cat in the Hat footie pajamas now as well as my hat, and traditions are nice for students to look forward to. For my part, I always have a lot of trouble remembering that 2 March comes right after the end of February!







Morgan, Judith and Neil. Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel
22 August 1999, DaCapo Press

Need some reading for this evening to keep the Seuss mood going? This biography, written by Geisel's long time neighbors with his cooperation, is a well-researched and complete biography of the man and his work. Pictures are included, and a lot of information about how he came to write particular books in presented. I normally love biographies and have read any number of them-- but this one was a tiny bit boring. Must admit that I preferred the Childhood of Famous Americans version, Dr. Seuss: Young Author and Artist!