To celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday on March 2, we held a special version of our preschool storytime honoring his works. My supervisor and I worked on this program together, so we tagged-teamed on the storytime.
MOVEMENT: “Shake My Sillies Out” from More Singable Songs for the Very Young by Raffi
PROP READING:
We started off with a prop-filled presentation of:
Green Eggs and Ham.
I portrayed Sam-I-Am, and my supervisor was the friend unwilling to try the titular treat. We had a table set up with all the props we needed for the story including:
Green Eggs and Ham (Color photo-copy laminated)
Here or There (Color photo-copy laminated, found via Google Image Search)
A House (made from Lego)
A Mouse (Puppet)
A Box
A Fox (he looks a little tired, I know, but it’s a fox from our puppet collection)
A Car
A Tree (Also from the library’s puppet collection)
This next row is a bit more… creative…
A Train (train whistle, I made the noise each time the book said “train”)
Dark (a black piece of construction paper with the word “dark” on it)
The Rain (a squirt bottle filled with water, that I misted every time the word “rain” was said. This got a good laugh, and was a great idea from my supervisor)
A Goat
A Boat
Since Sam-I-Am is the one who introduces the different props, I would hold up the item in question as I mentioned it. Then, my supervisor read off the answers of where the green eggs and ham would not be enjoyed, I held the item in question up again so that the audience could say it aloud. She also showed the illustrations of the book as well so those could be seen by the audience.
FLANNELBOARD:
Colorful Eggs (No Ham)
I stole this brilliant idea from this post at Mel’s Desk.
I took her suggestion of making it into a game, so on one side the eggs are a nice and normal yellow. On the other, wild colors! I started with all the yellow yolks up, then turned each one over at the appropriate time as I recited:
I-am-Sam.
Sam-I-am.
I do so like ____
eggs and ham.
(filling in the blank with the audience of the color of the egg). From this activity I learned that my pink egg (second from the left on the top row) really looks like an orange egg from afar and not like the hot pink it looks up close.
BOOK:
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
My supervisor just read an except of this one, up until the “goodnight” part. It worked really well shortened like that.
MOVEMENT: “If You’re Happy and You Know It – PS Version”
My supervisor does this one a little differently, so check out my A Capella Movements page for the PS version.
VIDEO:
“Zax” from Seuss Celebration: 9 Favorite Televised Classics
Many of the Seuss videos are 25 minutes long or so — “Zax” worked well for storytime since it was only 3 minutes or so.
TREATS:
What would a birthday celebration be without a sweet treat? After the movie, we all sang “Happy Birthday” to Dr. Seuss, and then it was time to let them eat cake!
(I forgot to take a photo of the cake before it was devoured! But as you can see, at least we had a lot of interest!)
ATTENDANCE: 38 people
HOW IT WENT: I think this was a really fun unique storytime. Other than joining in on storytimes as an intern, I’d never done a joint storytime before. I think it went really well, and that we both were able to highlight the places where we shine in storytime to make it a success. I think if I were going to do this program again, I might have a larger table on which to place the props — since Seuss changes the patter of the objects in Green Eggs and Ham that might make it easier to do. Another Idea I had for that would just be to used laminated images for all the objects like I did for the green eggs and ham. Then I could just have a stack put together and go through the stack in order as the items were mentioned.
How did you celebrate Dr. Seuss’s Birthday or Read Across America?
Jen in the Library 
The prop reading looks so cool! Did you and your supervisor dress up in any way? Were you reading from the book, or just manipulating the props? I’d love to know more about the logistics.
We didn’t dress up in any way, but if I did this again, I would. She had a copy of the book so that the audience could see the illustrations, and I was working the prop table. We did it like a reader’s theatre, almost with 2 characters, Friend and Sam-I-Am.
When I first introduced a prop as Sam-I-Am I would hold it up: “Would you like them here or there?” (hold up image of sign saying here or there.”
Supervisor: I would not like them (I hold up sign of here or there so audience can chime in) Here or there. I would not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them Sam-I-Am.
We followed that pattern for all the props we had. I held them up when I introduced them in the story, then when the Friend repeated that he would not like them there, I held up the object again so the audience could participate.
My supervisor sat on one side of the room and held the book up, and I was on the other end behind a table with all the props.
I hope that makes things a little more clear, but if you still have questions, just let me know! And if you use this/expand it/change it, I’d love to know that too!
Hi Jen, Love your props!…I’ve just done it with signs as described here: http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/2014/03/pre-school-storytime-everything-green.html
If you are interested, I’ve also described my Seussapalooza craft program here:
http://carolsimonlevin.blogspot.com/search?q=seuss
What wonderful resources! Thank you for sharing them here!