Celebrate Reading with Read Across America Day

March 2 is officially Read Across America Day as it celebrates the birthday of Dr. Seuss, but many schools do a full week of celebrations that might be Seuss-themed, reading themed or both.

Last year I did a bunch of Seuss related content including art projects, math activities and literacy ideas, so I thought this year I’d focus a little more on reading-related crafts and activities.

Of course these things can also be Seuss-related, such as making bookmarks inspired by the Lorax (Artsy Fartsy Mama), Thing 1 and Thing 2 (Red Ted Art) or truffula trees (The Gingerbread House).

Year Round Homeschool has printable reading logs with a Seuss theme, and while these are more for grownups who remember cards in library books, this printable reading log bookmark from The Crafty Blog Stalker is really cute, too.

Playful Notes has an idea for an easy reading journal for kids you can make at home or in the classroom. And whether you wrap them up or leave the titles visible, doing a book swap in the classroom is a fun way to get kids talking about books they loved and want to share with friends (this idea is from Bear Haven Mama and talks about how you could do it with kids).

I also love a reading challenge in the form of bingo. If you’re doing this in a classroom you can make up your own challenges (read on the playground, check out a book from the library, read a book about your school mascot, etc.) or use a printable like this one from The Cozy Red Cottage. Kids can have a week or a month or however long you like to complete the challenge and then get a bookmark or book or something reading related as a prize.

One of the items on that bingo card is reading in a fort, which reminded me of the easy reading fort I made when my daughter was younger. If you don’t have room for a full-on fort, just throw some extra cozy blankets and pillows in a corner and call it your reading nook.

125 more activities to get your child to read.

How do you encourage kids to read? I’d love to hear about it!

Celebrate Dr Seuss with a Word Search Coloring Page

A Week of Dr. Seuss Inspired Art Projects

Dr. Seuss Math Activities

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You can also see some of our other articles on reading activities and ideas here.

125 more activities to get your child to read.

Next Plan Idea:

A Week of Dr. Seuss Inspired Art Projects

With summer coming soon in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s a fun time to incorporate activities and crafts with a sunny theme. Take some time to learn about the sun (this post from National Geographic Kids is a good one) and then do some sun activities.

Sun prints are a classic summer activity, and there are lots of ways to do them, from placing objects on construction paper (like in this craft from MomBrite) or by using sun print paper (aka cyanotype paper).

Practice threading, counting, color sorting and other skills with this easy sun threading activity from Taming Little Monsters.

Lessons 4 Little Ones has a great blog post full of ideas for science experiments using the sun, such as melting crayons, looking at shadows, making a sun dial and trying a solar oven. Printables to go with the lessons are available for purchase or you can just talk through the students’ hypotheses about what will happen and draw or otherwise record the results.

This updraft tower from Almost Unschoolers is a cool way to illustrate that the heat of the sun causes an updraft, which makes the pinwheel spin. This is a good one to do inside near a sunny window so you don’t have wind spinning the pinwheel instead.

You’ll want to get out in the sun to try this experiment form Life with Moore Babies to see what kinds of things the sun can melt. Using different kinds of sweets you can see how the sun melts things by itself and how you can concentrate the power of the sun with a magnifying glass.

Playing with shadows is fun for kids of all ages, and you can track a shadow through the day with this experiment from Science Sparks. If you’re working with multiple kids they can each choose an object to shadow (ha!) and at the end of the day you can see how different their shadows looked.

And of course you’ll want to make a sun themed suncatcher craft, right? This one from Fox Farm Home uses all the pretty flowers you collect on your nature walk and puts them in a sun-shaped frame.

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

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