1-2-3 Come Do Some Horton The Elephant Activities With Me The first week of March we do a lot of Cat in the Hat activities to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday. For the rest of March is Reading Month, I sprinkle in activities for some of his other popular stories, like Horton Hears A Who. This blog article features 4 of my new packets. First up is "Hangin' Out With Horton". Since so many teachers have the 5 senses as one of their science standards, I decided to make this sweet flip booklet featuring Horton because he HEARS a Who. The pages of the booklet act like a "stem" for the clover that Horton is holding. Each page features one of the senses. Students complete the simple writing prompts by filling in what Horton sees, hears, tastes, smells, and feels. This can relate to the story, or be whatever they imaginations dream up. The last page is also up to them, as they finish the sentence: "Horton... For that finishing touch, have them glue their school picture to the clover. They are now an official member of "Whoville". Next up is Horton Hears, which also reviews the 5 senses and matches the above packet. The packet includes . . . * An alliterative and "tongue twisting" writing prompt craftivity * Alliteration and tongue twister definition posters * A class mini book: “Horton Hears A Who. How About You?” * “We spy an elephant’s eye and these Ee words:” posters, with matching worksheet * Horton’s senses whole group activity, with matching individual worksheet * Label the elephant poster, with matching worksheets * 5 photo-posters of elephants, featuring one of the 5 senses * “My favorite sense” writing prompt with a “What’s Your Favorite Sense?” graphing extension * “If I had to give up one of my senses it would be . . .” writing prompt with graphing extension plus a ... * “Where might an elephant walk?” photo-poster, with matching writing prompt. An elephant is my favorite animal, so I'm also big on the Elmer stories by David McKee. I thought it would be fun to design a packet with both pachyderms , and just finished up-dating Horton & Elmer Fun. This 102-page jumbo packet includes: * 4 “Craftivities” * Games * Pocket chart cards * Worksheets * Posters * Writing prompts * Graphing activities * Venn diagrams * Itty Bitty color booklet * Rhyming activity * Lollipop certificate of praise plus * Bookmarks. Finally, I just finished the "I Saw An Elephant" packet today. I designed these color activities specifically to go with Horton, but I kept this packet generic, so that it would work anytime of the year, and fits in nicely with a zoo or animal theme as well. It's differentiated for PK-1st grade, plus I've also included the UK "colours" and "grey" spelling options. The packet includes a variety of posters, games, writing prompts, pocket chart cards for 12 colors, with a matching bookmark. My students keep theirs in their writing journals. There's also an emergent reader, “Elephant Colors” booklet, filled with lots of Dolch sight words, plus a "favorite color elephant" graphing extension, with matching “color me” worksheet. Besides the Memory Match games, there's also 2 options for a “Roll and Color” dice game, with numbers 1-6 for PK children, plus a game sheet for numbers 1-12 with addition practice and two dice, for older kiddos. To mix math with literacy, there are full color, plus black and white number puzzles (sequencing numbers from 1-10 for PK kiddos, plus skip counting by 10s to 100 for older students. There's also a set of Color mixing (primary to secondary colors) pocket chart cards, with a matching black & white template for students to color, which I staple together as a flip booklet. The “mixing colors” elephant craftivity will be a big hit. My students absolutely LOVED mixing colors with finger paints. They got so excited when a new color appeared as if by “magic”. The results are awesome and make an interesting bulletin board. A caption could be: “Mixing It Up In (Kindergarten)”. Today's FREEBIE also features Horton. It's a sweet writing prompt craftivity, that includes the puppet craft, plus 22 writing-prompts! Well that's it for today. I hope you still have some time left in your busy March schedule to fit in some fun with Horton. The weather's hit 60 today, so the dreary snow is finally melting like crazy! Woo Hoo; I can smell spring in the air. Wishing you a wonderful day. "Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes." - Carl Friedrich Gauss