Friday, March 01, 2013

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!







Dr. Seuss and Mr. GeiselMorgan, 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!

6 comments:

  1. You look smashing, Ms. Yingling--happy Read Across America Day/Dr. Seuss's Birthday!

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  2. That photo rocks, Karen! I want Cat in the Hat footies.

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  3. How do you sleep with that big hat on?

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  4. Anonymous10:03 AM EST

    In our school district, I was the first kid ever to hit 1000! The goal for a fifth grader (like me) is 50 points for the year). I am trying to get 1500 points by the end of the year. Did the whole school/grade get 6,500 AR points?

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  5. Love the PJ pants idea to motivate kids to read! Genius!

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  6. Great idea! I'm sure the kids had fun with it. As much as they love being grown up, they still love being kids. This date always sneaks up on me, too. That's especially un-good now as I'm in charge of all the elementaries! Yikes!

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