Hop on Pop Hopscotch
This was a giant hopscotch board (made out of tape since the event was in the library) with different "popcorn" words inside each square. All of the words rhymed with hop and pop. Kids had to make a sentence with whichever word was in the square that their tosser landed in. It seemed like a fun activity for younger kids to practice some of these words, and to get them moving, which is always a good thing!
Photo Booth
We made a Thing 1 and Thing 2, and Horton Photo Booth for the literacy night. We made these into cardboard cut-outs so kids could stick their heads through and get their picture taken. Here is me and Amanda (my roommate and fellow AmeriCorps member) in the Thing 1 and Thing 2 cut-out.
The kids seemed to have fun with this, and they got to take their pictures home with them the next day.
Pin the Heart on the Grinch
Pretty self-explanatory. Just like pin the tail on the donkey, but with a twist. Here's our Grinch before he got his heart. Pretty creepy! But he was instantly decreepified once he got his heart. :) Yes, that's a word.
The Lorax Station
We had a bunch of ideas for Lorax activities so I decided to put them all together at one station. The main one was decorating little flower pots like the Lorax, and then planting a seed in these pots. We'll see if any of them actually survive… Hopefully! The kids could also decorate Lorax mustaches and attach these to a popsicle stick for an instant Lorax costume. We also had a little truffle tree drawing craft, where kids could draw pictures of truffle trees, put it in a frame, and then include a quote from The Lorax book. My favorite is, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." So good. That and the Butter Battle Book are my two favorite Dr. Seuss books, although it's tough to choose.
More Crafts!
I found so many different crafts ideas on Pinterest that it was hard to narrow down, but the other two we had for the kids were a Cat in the Hat pop up craft made from a toilet paper roll, and a One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish cootie catcher that had Dr. Seuss quotes on the inside.
Fishing Pond
In the style of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, we had a fishing pond. I wish I had gotten a picture of it because it actually turned out pretty nicely. We were not sure how it would work out until the last minute, but we ended up just setting it up on a circular rug in the library. I made the fish a while ago by cutting out and coloring fish, attaching them to construction paper, and then putting a magnet in each of them. And laminating them. (I have discovered that laminating things just automatically make them better.) Then we made fishing poles by using an hook magnet attached to a clip on the end of a dowel with string. A lot of steps went into this activity so it was nice that it worked out well in the end. It was not that easy either, so kids really had to work to get a fish out of the pond.
Snacks!
Snacks are always a necessity. I found some great ideas for Dr. Seuss kabobs somewhere on the internet, and made Cat in the Hat, and Grinch Kabobs. Here are link to both of those.
I also failed to get a picture of the kabobs, but they look basically like the pictures, but on very long wooden kabob sticks. I was afraid the kids might attack each other with the sticks, but I think they were actually too busy at all of the stations to even think of that idea. Or maybe I was too busy to notice that they were attacking each other? Either way, I did not hear any complaints. In addition to the kabobs, we had lots of Goldfish cracker, and even cotton candy for a little bit.
Prizes
As it was literacy night, we of course had lots of books to give away. We had so many families attend that we almost got rid of all of the old books that our ELL teacher has had around for a while. Now we can get new exciting ones! We did have have some new ones for this literacy night though, including The Cat in the Cat Comes Back and a Horton Hears a Who pop up book. We also got some Dr. Seuss pencils and erasers from Oriental Trading to give away as prizes at the fishing pond.
It was amazing how many people we got at this event. I think we officially outgrew the library, and will have to expand to to a bigger venue if we do something as exciting as this in the coming months.
Now to leave you with one last random photo, here is some of the kids that I have been snowboarding/skiing with the past few weekends. February finally brought some snow to the Loup (between Twisp and Okanogan), so I got to help with the ski program for a couple of weekends. Since it started so late, and because other sports are starting and there are basketball tournaments, there has not been the same attendance as other years. But! It still was a lot of fun (Saturday was the last day), and felt like a very productive way to spend a few weekends.
I feel okay about posting this on the internet because the kids are not really identifiable in all their gear, but you can tell they're having fun! Happy daylight savings everyone! Spring is here! In Pateros at least. :)
