Getting Ready to celebrate Dr. Suess's Birthday on March 2

Celebrating Dr. Suess's Birthday:
by Glenda Propst , Regarding Nannies Development Team

March 2 would have been Dr. Suess’s 106^th birthday.

His books are timeless and much loved by children of all ages so leading up to his birthday we wanted to share with you some fun activities you can do to go along with his books

Since today is Wednesday: Read the book Wacky Wednesday. You can do some wacky things today or you can plan to do them another Wacky Wednesday. Here are a few wacky ideas:
Wear your clothes backwards

Wear your pajamas all day

Where 2 different shoes, or 2 different socks

Wear a polka dot shirt and striped pants.

Have breakfast for lunch

Walk backwards

Choose a word you can’t say and substitute “beep” for it.

For example, if the word is drink, you would say may a have something to “beep”

There are all kinds of fun things you can do with Wacky Wednesday and Wacky Wednesday can really be any day of the week!

Read the foot book and let the kids paint with their feet, or let them create their own footbook.

Green Eggs and Ham:

Before breakfast read Green Eggs and Ham then show the children you only add food coloring to the food and then prepare the food. Talk about how the food tastes. Is it any different because of the coloring? Would you like to have green eggs from now on?

Take turns to see how many words you can rhyme.

* Create some new animals by "crossing" two--What would you get if you crossed and alligator with a giraffe?Would it be an alliraffe or a girgator? What would it look like? Can you draw it?

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The Cat in the Hat

* Discuss the house rules. What are the children allowed to do or not to do especially when they are not at home with their parents.

Talk about safety?
Talk about what to do if a stranger really does come to the door.
Do all your charges know their addresses in case an emergency occurs?

There are lots of places online for more ideas of how to celebrate the books of Dr. Suess.

You might want to check out www.suessville.com

and http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/marchholidays/l/blmar2nd.htm

Some of the ideas from this post came from the Worldwidenannies Yahoogroup.

We would love for you to share with us how you plan to celebrate!

Grass Hair and Tissue Paper flowers

You will need:
Containers (pots, cups)
Soil, grass seed Craft materials (such as wiggly eyes, paint, markers) to decorate a face on the front of containers


Talk about how the children can grow grass "hair."

Decorate your pots and give them names.

Next, prepare to plant by scooping soil into containers (count the scoops!) and adding grass seed (cover with a light layer of soil). Water (mist) and place near a window.
Children will learn:
How to care for something,
To observe, measure, and chart the growth of seed to grass
Count how many days it takes to grow the grass hair.
Your child can develop their fine motor skills by cutting the grass hair
(this would be a good opportunity to discuss not cutting their own hair or their friends)


Seed art:
Glue a bean on the bottom of a sheet of paper and have the child draw what they think will come out of it. Then plant a bean and watch to see how true the drawing is. Again you can keep a journal and count how many days it takes until the bean starts to sprout. You can also let the child draw a picture of what it actually looks like each day.



Tissue Paper Flowers. Kids of all ages enjoy this fun craft!
Make a paper garden with tissue flowers & pipe cleaner stems .

Directions for Tissue paper flowers

Supplies:1 package of multicolored tissue or crepe paper

1 package of green pipe cleaners.

Scissors

Take four to five sheets of the tissue paper and layer them (if you want multicolored flowers, use different colors).

Cut into 8-inch squares.

Keeping the sheets layered, take one set of squares and fold it like an accordion so it looks like a thin rectangle.

At the center of the rectangle, cut a small v-shaped notch on both sides.

Take the end of a pipe cleaner and twist it around the notch.

With the stem pointing straight down, gently pull up one layer of tissue into the center.

Pull up the remaining layers, one by one.

Repeat for the other side of the flower.

Once all the layers are pulled up, fluff them in place to look natural.

Continue making more flowers with the remaining stacks of squares.

Tips and variations:

For sturdier stems, wrap two pipe cleaners together.

Cut smaller or larger squares to change the size of your flowers.

Add more layers for thicker flowers or less layers for thinner ones.

For a shiny effect, dip the top edges in white glue and then dip in loose glitter.

Make smaller flowers and string them together as garland.