Dr. Seuss Crafts by obSEUSSed

Dr. Seuss’ birthday is just a few weeks away.  March 2 falls on a Saturday this year so it will be a great day to celebrate by doing crafts and activities at home with my kids. I’m sure we will be celebrating for several weeks. I’m helping plan a big Dr. Seuss style carnival for our school read-a-thon mid March and will share more about that soon.

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be a place to share craft ideas and activities inspired by Dr. Seuss. I also wanted to share other children’s book crafts and activities to keep kids excited about reading.

I created the Dr. Seuss Link Collection as a place for bloggers to share those Seuss inspired ideas.  Make sure you take a look at nearly 300 fabulous ideas that bloggers have shared. I’ll be featuring a few of them in the next few weeks.


Dr. Seuss Ideas on Pinterest
Then Pinterest came along and it has become the place I’ve gathered more than 1,500 Dr. Seuss crafts, activities, snacks, party ideas and more.  I’m blown away by the creative ideas I’ve seen.  I’ve loved to see other people just as obSEUSSed or even more obSEUSSed than I am. This love of Dr. Seuss connects us all.
If you have access to Pinterest you must browse through some of these ideas I’ve been gathering.  They are overflowing on one board so I am in the process of splitting the pins onto more distinct boards.  This is the best place to find all your Dr. Seuss inspiration.


I hope you’ll pick up a book and read to a child and plan an activity to go along with it. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Reading is the most important part.

Here are a few of the projects I’ve created and shared on obSEUSSed. I hope you find some ideas to help you get started.

Click on a picture below for more details about the projects.

The obSEUSSed with Dr. Seuss Link Collection

Celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday with crafts, snacks, activities, parties and more.

The ObSEUSSed with Dr. Seuss Link Collection!

Take a look or add a link.

 

I’ve been collecting Dr. Seuss ideas for over a year now. It has been so fun to see this linky party grow with amazing ideas.
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This link collection is a place to share ideas for bringing Dr. Seuss books to life. I keep these links as a resource throughout the year on the tab at the top of this blog. You can come back later in the year and add your project or get ideas anytime.

• EDUCATIONAL: Dr. Seuss activities, crafts, games, free printables, worksheets, classroom units and readathon ideas.
• CELEBRATIONS: Dr. Seuss Parties, Cakes, treats, baby showers, birthday parties, Read Across America Day, Dr. Seuss' Birthday, costumes, recipes.
• DECORATING: Dr. Seuss nursery, playroom, child's room, classroom, bulletin boards.

Guidelines: Any, family-friendly, Dr. Seuss related link is welcome. I will add some links that I find while searching the web but bloggers, teachers, crafters and parents are welcome to link-up their projects.  I will watch for new ideas and feature some on my blog. (Please do not list commercial items. If you'd like to sponsor this blog or place an ad, please contact Victoria at obSEUSSed (at) live (dot) com.)

If you add a link to your site I'd love if you posted this button on your page to let others come take a look at these links too.

<a href="http://www.obseussed.com/p/books.html"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7149/6804031883_59528e1db7.jpg" alt="obSEUSSedLinkCollection" width="125" height="125"/></a>

Thanks for stopping by the Dr. Seuss Collection. To enter your link, go under all of these images and enter the title of your project in the name field.

For those of you on Pinterest you can also find more than 1,000 Dr. Seuss crafts, parties and activities on my ObSEUSSed with Dr. Seuss Pinterest board.
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Some similar Dr. Seuss Linky Parties to check out:

• Dr. Seuss Celebration Linky Party at Happy Birthday Author
  
• SEUSS-per Linky Party at Mrs. Bainbridge's Class blog.
  
• Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss Linky Party - hosted by 15 blogs.
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Dr. Seuss Crafts Created by obSEUSSed

I thought I’d share a few of my favorite Dr. Seuss crafts I’ve created and shared on this blog.

Get Creative Celebrating Dr. Seuss!
There are thousands of ways you can celebrate Dr. Seuss and encourage literacy for children. Let your kids pick out one of Dr. Seuss’ books and I’m sure you’ll be inspired to come up with a craft or activity to go along with it. I’m so impressed with all the projects I’ve been seeing online. I’m glad I’m not alone in my obSEUSSion.  I’ll share more Dr. Seuss ideas throughout the coming week as we lead up to his birthday on Friday. Here are a few I've created.

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Just click on a picture below to take you to the project details.



Also remember to check the Dr. Seuss Link Collection here on obSEUSSed with ideas from other crafters, teachers, moms and more.


Along with my collection of 1,000+  ideas on Pinterest for Dr. Seuss crafts, parties, activities and more.


Some great Dr. Seuss Linky Parties to check out:

Dr. Seuss Celebration Linky Party at Happy Birthday Author
SEUSS-per Linky Party at Mrs. Bainbridge's Class blog.
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss Linky Party - hosted by 15 blogs.

Get Creative Celebrating Dr. Seuss!

The Lorax and Cat in the Hat Pencil Cans {Craft}

My kids and I made these Lorax and Cat in the Hat pencil holders out of recycled cans to celebrate the upcoming birthday of Dr. Seuss and the new Lorax movie release on March 2.

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These are hands-on kid crafts that take 5-10 minutes to make.

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How to:
Find orange and yellow felt then trace the shape of the Lorax in orange (or light brown) then cut out. Use yellow felt to cut out the mustache and eyebrows. Don’t worry about getting it perfect. Glue the pieces together and glue googly eyes on. I also used a permanent marker to add details.
Cut out scrapbook paper or cardstock to cover the can, then glue the Lorax on.

I just used yellow pencils and drew zigzag lines around them with a black permanent marker.  We tried the turquoise fur glued to the top first. It looked great but it didn’t stick well. You could probably try hot glue but I wanted my kids to do this – so we ripped the fur off and I let them wad up wrapping tissue paper. They glued the balls of tissue paper to the top and they worked perfectly.  I also tried using it as a vase and it looked cute with flowers.

My inspiration (I combined these two ideas)
I love this felt Lorax by Maggie at Smashed Peas and Carrots. She also has a pattern and a game to go with it. I found this via Pinterest. I like her movie version of the Lorax. Mine above is more based off the book.

I also saw these great Truffula Tree Pencils at the Zakka Life by Jessica.

This is the felt Lorax storyboard I made years ago.

We really needed these pencil holders for our homework table (these would look great in a classroom too). I can never find a pencil when I need one so both these cans will stay at our homework station.  My son loved coloring the stripes for the Cat in the Hat can.

How to:
Cut white card stock to cover the can. Draw stripes on with a pencil and tell your child which sections to color red. Then have them trace the lines with black marker. Glue the paper to cover the can.

Now hold the paper to let the glue set for a few minutes. Trace a 1 inch circle around the can on the felt. Cut the felt out.  Add glue to the bottom of the can and add the felt to the can. This will be the hat brim (and make it soft to put on tables).


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I hope you have fun trying out this quick DIY Dr. Seuss Craft!

LORAX APPS:
With the movie coming out you can check out the two free apps from Universal Studios. Kids will love them. The Official Lorax App lets you hold the screen over your mouth to look like a mustache. The Lorax’s mouth moves when you talk.
The movement is pretty jumpy, even after we adjusted the microphone sensitivity, but my son doesn’t care (and hey, it’s FREE!). This is fun to use while reading the book, or just to talk to each other and pretend you’re the Lorax.


This video is only 5 seconds. See how it works. Get The Lorax Free App here. “I am the Lorax, I Speak for the Trees.”
The newer app is the Lorax Truffula Shuffula. It is similar to Bejeweled Blitz (which I love) but it is more kid friendly with great truffula graphics and fun sounds.  I’ve had it a few days and it has frozen up 3 times so far so I hope they fix the glitch, but otherwise a great FREE app.

Check out The Lorax Garden, game app for kids created by Oceanhouse Media. This game is only 99 cents and is another great one to play while you explore the story.
And I can’t wait for The Lorax movie to be released Friday, March 2. Click here to see a helpful review by a mom on Today’s Mama. She says there are five musical numbers in the movie. The trailers look funny and have excellent graphics. I can’t wait to take my kids next week.

Oh the Thinks You Can Think Dr. Seuss Activities and App Review

“Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!,” a book originally written in 1975 by Dr. Seuss, is now an interactive book app kids can read and play on their Apple devices.



Oh, the Thinks You Can Think App Review:
My kids and I love reading the classic Dr. Seuss hardback books and now I can’t believe I can carry all the interactive books in my pocket or purse for my kids to read and play while shopping and traveling around town.  I’ve got my Dr. Seuss collection in my pocket! Instead of saying“There’s a Wocket in My Pocket,” I should say “there’s a touch in my clutch.” 

The Oh, the Thinks You Can Think omBook app has a variety of kid-friendly interactive elements. It can read to your child or your child can read it by themselves and go at their own pace. My kids, ages 5 and 7, easily flipped (swiped) through the electronic pages.

Oceanhouse Media,the creators of omBook apps, did an excellent job at keeping all of Dr. Seuss’ original illustrations. This specific story had question marks that would pop up for the kids to touch to progress the story on each page.  My kids have played with this book over and over making sure to tap each question mark causing pictures to move and pop up, and tap each picture on the page making the vocabulary word pop up. When it tells you to “think right” the question mark appears on the right encouraging the child to tap it, “think yellow” they tap the question mark and yellow birds appear.  Or my favorite, “Think about beautiful schlopp with a cherry on top” and you tap the schlopp causing a cherry to appear. How fun is that?

Get little ones excited about reading:
The great literacy connection for this story is that as your child thinks about the words, they tap the question marks to immediately see what they thought about. They make it happen. They think it, they see it. Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! 

The Oh, the Thinks You Can Think omBook app is a Seusstastic way to keep children imagining and exploring the world of Dr. Seuss while experiencing early literacy and thinking skills.



More Dr. Seuss Apps:
Oceanhouse Media, in partnership with Dr. Seuss Enterprises, plans to create 44 of the author’s books as omBooks (Oceanhouse Media Books). There are 34 Dr. Seuss apps available right now including a handful of free apps to get you started. Check out Dr. Seuss’ ABC’s and the Bday Camera (photo app). Oh, the Thinks You Can Think omBook app is available for $3.99.


Disclosure: I received a free version of the “Thinks” app to let my kids try for this review. We had already been playing with multiple Oceanhouse Media Dr. Seuss apps (they are on the top selling apps list and have an excellent reputation for great products) and have enjoyed the variety and interactivity of each one. 

They just released “There’s a Wocket in My Pocket” omBook app last week. What book do you think they’ll do next?

Giving Away 20 Dr. Seuss Apps:
Oceanhouse Media is giving away 20 of their Dr. Seuss apps to one random person who comments on their Facebook page by Aug. 31.  All you need to do is like their page and leave a comment of your favorite Dr. Seuss quote. Fun, quick and easy to enter. Take 1 minute now to share your favorite quote and enter. Contest details here.

Twitter Party:
Monday, Aug. 29 6 pm PST. Use hashtag #OMB2S to discuss back to school with @OceanhouseMedia and others on Twitter. These chats are fun and I am looking forward to participating.


 
Here are a few activities I came up with to go along with Oh, the Thinks You Can Think!


Oh, the Thinks You Can Think! Free Printable Worksheet:

Personal or classroom use only. Click on picture to enlarge then right click to “Save As” to your computer. You could also copy and paste into a ‘Word’ document.

Reality vs. Imaginary Thoughts:
Have children think up something real in the first thought bubble, then something pretend in the second thought bubble. Depending on their age they can draw pictures or write words. They could make a list or fill out several worksheets.  Get them thinking. They could draw pictures from the book (i.e. Schlopp or a Rink-Rinker-Fink) or make up their own.
 

A Great After School or Classroom Snack: Beautiful Schlopp with a Cherry on Top




Super easy to make Schlopp: Apple Sauce, 1-2 drops food coloring and an M&M for the cherry on top.



Balancing Activity:
Let the kids stack rocks or wood chips to see if they can balance them. Then ask if they would dare yank the tooth of a Rink-Rinker-Fink, see if they can pull a rock out of the middle of the pile to see what happens.



Zoo Field Trip:
We went to the zoo today and I asked the kids the question from the book, “How much water can 55 elephants drink?” My son answered, “I don’t know, maybe 135 tanks. Then they use their trunks to give each other showers.” Ask your kids that question too the next time you visit the zoo.


Posting this project at the following blogs with more great ideas: