Literacy Night...Seuss Style!

This week, our entire school has been invaded by Dr. Seuss-mania for literacy night!  Each hallway selected a Seuss book, and then went to town decorating bulletin boards, walls, and doors using their book as inspiration.  Our hallway chose, "Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!", and each class chose a page.

My class chose the page that says, "Think and wonder.  Wonder and think.  How much water can 55 elephants drink?".  Naturally, my students immediately curious about this question....and many more.  How much water DOES an elephant drink?!  What about a baby elephant?  Do African Elephants drink more than Asian Elephants?  Man, it's as if Dr. Seuss intended to make kids curious about this stuff!  You have to take advantage of these curious, teachable moments, so my lesson plans changed (EEEEEKKKK!!!).  I mean, we can do auto-biographies next week, right?

So instead, this week we shifted into researcher-mode.  Students worked in groups to research how much water an elephant drinks in one day.  They checked several sources, because good scientists use reliable information.  They then narrowed their focus, and averaged the information from several sources. Finally, students used multiplication to determine how much water 55 elephants would drink in a single day, and they presented their findings to the group. 

While all that was a blast, we also had to take care of our Literacy Night bulletin board.  The students drew and colored 55 elephants, and of course, we had to include the fantastic Science and Math work because we all know that literacy is not taught in isolation! 

   

 

It's a little more busy than I'm used to, but the kids love it, so it will have to do.  Tomorrow night, we will showcase some of our very favorite 3rd grade books, make an awesome bookmark craft, and chat about end-of-year reading goals.

Does your school have a Literacy Night?  How do you get families involved and excited about literacy?  I'd love to hear all about it!