Celebrating Seuss

Our painted truffula trees and construction paper cats-in-hats will greet our guest readers this week as we celebrate Dr. Seuss and our love of reading!

Click here for my blog post about our truffula trees, and click here for a cats-in-hats tutorial!

~Michaele

Painting Truffula Trees

This week the Stars painted truffula trees so that our hallway bulletin boards will be decorated in time for our guest readers during Read Across America and our celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthay!

I preassembled the background and frame, using 9 X 12 sky blue construction paper, backed by 10 X 13 white and 11 X 14 black paper.

Students wrote their names in the lower right-hand corner and then chose their truffula tree color from orange, red, and yellow tempera paint.  They painted a circle onto the sky blue paper:

... and filled it in.  The brush strokes helped give the truffula tree top a fluffy, textural look:

Using a thin brush, students then added a black tree trunk, letting the brush move this way and that, stopping right before meeting the edge of the blue paper:

It looks like a balloon, doesn't it?

After letting the tree top and trunk dry...

... the Stars painted white stripes onto the trunk using a Sharpie paint marker:

... and dabbed some green grass at the base of the blue paper.

Once our bulletin board is finished, I'll share it here on the blog for you to see!

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It's almost time for the annual wearing-of-the-Sneetch-shirt!  Click here to be taken to the tutorial.

~Michaele

Truffula Tree Tutorial

Students love to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday!  Listening to favorite stories by guest readers, making Cat in the Hat crafts, speaking in rhyme, and enjoying green eggs and ham and gummy "hats" as snacks are activities that typically fill the week as students nationwide remember Theodor Seuss Geisel.

(source here)

Truffula trees are a favorite decor element from The Lorax.  Long stalks/trunks with yellow and black stripes and colorful, fluffy tops can be found on many bulletin boards and classroom doors as well as decorating school programs and libraries.

I've found several tutorials online for making truffula trees, using items such as pool noodles or heating insulation, but I wanted to use items that had been donated to our class over the past few months.  Affordable, lightweight, and easy to store, these trees could also be happily adopted by students or families planning a Seuss themed birthday party.

You'll need the cardboard tubes from wrapping paper, double sided tape, black crepe paper rolls, yellow tape, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, a hole punch and scissors:

Put a piece of double-sided tape at the end of a cardboard tube:

Then add a strip of double-sided tape down the length of the tube (be careful, it sticks to everything):

Press the end of your crepe paper onto your first piece of tape:

Wrap the crepe paper around the tube, gently pulling it taut and making sure all of the cardboard surface is covered.  The long strip of double-sided tape will hold the crepe paper in place as you roll/wrap.  A word of caution: you'll likely end up with blue-ish black fingers thanks to the bleed-through of the crepe paper. 

When you've covered the tube, leave a bit of crepe paper at the end to tuck up inside:

Wrap yellow tape around the tube to create stripes:

You can use large butcher paper to create the tuft for the top of the tree or you can fold layers of tissue paper (I used 6 sheets per tuft) fan-style, tying a pipe cleaner around the middle, to make a more dimensional top:

I cut the edges:

... and carefully separated the layers:

To attach the tuft to the trunk, I punched two holes at one end of the tube and anchored the ends of the pipe cleaners through them:

Oh truffula tree, oh truffula tree, how lovely are thy tufts...

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Do you know of any other Seuss-inspired tutorials that readers would enjoy?  Link us up in the comments!

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Tutorial: Cat in the Hat, the Kindergarten Year

 Use these pieces:

(and an extra black 2 X 3 piece or two for the ears and eyes; apologies for not photographing them)

 ... to make this cute Cat in the Hat:

Students should cut off the corners of the white square, making a circle. 

Glue that circle onto the center of the large black square.

Trim the corners off of the black square, making a larger circle.

Add pink triangle nose to center of face.

Cut out six whiskers from the 2 X 3 black rectangle, and glue three on either side of the nose.

(You'll need another rectangle or two for the ears and eyes)

Cut out two eyes.  Glue them above the nose.

Add a WHITE 2 X 7.5 strip of paper on the very top of the cat's head.  Yes, WHITE.

Add the red 1.5 X 12 strip to the bottom of the white stripe, so it sits lower on the forehead.  This is the brim of the hat.

Make an AB pattern with the remaining red and white strips, making the hat taller by adding stripes UP (some kiddos might choose to turn their cats upside down so they can add strips top to bottom instead of bottom to top).

Cut triangle ears and glue them so that they touch both the cat's face and his hat.

Add a mouth with crayon if desired.

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Do you have a Seuss-tastic craft to share?  Link us up in the comments below!

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Today's the Day!

Thank you Dr. Seuss, for your wonderful stories and ~messages~.

Sure, I'm a Star Bellied Sneetch this year (and every year) partly because my students are Super Stars.

But I'm also a Sneetch because we should all be able to live without discrimination.

Seuss-tastic!

Truffula trees at Craft Jr....

... numbers 1-78 create the Cat in the Hat dot to dot page...

... make your own C.I.T.H. Hat using paper and a paper plate...

... oobleck!

... and Seussville itself!

Monday's Random Links

Today was full of back-to-school shopping for Dear Daughter at Target and Office Depot, cute-bright-and-matchy apparently being her theme!

Target's dollar bins often turn up some goodies, and today was no different. While DD chose teen-themed pencils for school, I was thrilled to find buttons, pencils, erasers, magnets, mini notebooks, stickers and bags featuring some of Dr. Seuss' most wonderful characters (Read Across America takes place in March!):




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Check out your grocery store crackers/snack aisle and see if you can find these (I can't wait to use them for snacktime!):



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Snacks for children/students are one thing, snacks for grownups, quite another:

~ Baking Bites shares Dulce de Leche Brownies

~ My dear friend Karen once read my cards for me, years ago, identifying my animal totems. My "inner character and spirit" was a hummingbird. When CakeSpy's Primer on the Hummingbird Cake scrolled onto my read feed, I was intrigued (do you use real hummingbirds? Ew!)...thankfully, the cake is so named because it is" so sweet that people are drawn to it like hummingbirds to nectar." Whew.

~ Bakeralla shares a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, and then turns up the temptation by adding ice cream and sprinkles....

~ Tiramisu Squares... Oh yes, the Super Star Mom or Dad that brings Sweet Paul's Tiramisu Squares to school this year will clearly be in the running for Volunteer of the Year!

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Is it too early to start my 40th Birthday Wish List? Here's a start:

~ The Long Thread offers a wonderful tutorial for making Miss Little Red Riding Hood (no, I don't want the tutorial, I want the doll!)...

~ Saucy made affordable and sweet Hello Kitty BLING ('d love a bracelet!)...

~ This quilt by Frazzy Dazzles (you can SOOOOOO tell I'm a kindergarten teacher!)

~ And of course, birthday dinner at Simon and Seafort's in Anchorage, Alaska!