Literacy Activities to Celebrate Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss’ birthday is celebrated as Read Across America Day (or week) in early March. It’s a great time to have fun with rhymes and Seuss-style silliness. Here are some great literacy activities inspired by Dr. Seuss.

If your little ones are working on letter recognition, grab this Cat in the Hat inspired alphabet game printable from Tot Schooling. It includes both upper and lower case letter options, with printable cards you can mix up so kids can match and cover up the letters with counters, pompoms or whatever you have on hand.

Or try a red fish, blue fish alphabet matching game like this one from Growing Book by Book. This one is DIY because it’s not a printable, but it’s still pretty fast to pull together, especially if you don’t do all the letters.

Learn more about word families with these printable word family hats from This Reading Mama. Of course there’s a -at one, but there’s also an -an and -ap list. When all the words that have those letters are laid out, it makes a red and white striped hat.

For older kids, Minds in Bloom has a fun set of Seuss-inspired writing prompts. These touch on lots of different books, so you can focus on a book that you’ve read together or pick a prompt at random. Or do this writing prompt and art project in one inspired by Oh the Places You’ll Go from Schooltime Snippets.

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? is a book full of fun sounds. You can learn more about and play with onomatopoeia with this fun printable pack based on that book from Rock Your Homeschool (signing up for emails is required). You can use them to review words, match the thing with its sound, or to help make up stories.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 each year (because it celebrates the time period when several countries gained their independence) and it’s a great time to bring in some Hispanic inspired crafts and foods. For an overview on the celebration, the difference between Hispanic and Latino and the importance of the holiday, as well as a look at Latino art and famous Latinos and Latinas, check out this post and related information from the National Museum of the American Latino.

Spanish Playground has a great collection of craft ideas that you can do in Spanish class or with kids in any class or at home. It includes things like weaving, making mola (folk art from Panama; learn more at Kid World Citizen), doing an artist study of a Hispanic artist and more.

Crafty Chica has a great collection of crafts, coloring pages and printables for celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with kids. I love this coloring page inspired by Amante bark painting, but there are also folk art stamps, corn husk dolls, tile painting ideas and more.

Papel picado is a classic folk art from Mexico that will feel familiar if you’ve ever made a paper snowflake. Learn how to make them from tissue paper with this video from Hispanic Society Museum and Library.

Learn more about Hispanic Heritage Month, get recipes and crafts from PBS Kids. I love this Peruvian siku flute, which can be made with old markers or paper straws.

While not exactly a craft, playing loteria (a Spanish language bingo game) is a fun thing to do with a group of kids. Free Kids Crafts has printable bingo cards with basic Spanish vocabulary and images for people who don’t already know these words.

And if you need a little snack when you’re done crafting, try these no bake mini tres leches cakes from Inspired by Family. They’re made with purchased pound cake so they’re pretty fast and easy.

Have you read?

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