Read Across America

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to read to classes at Thornwell School for the Arts in Hartsville, SC as part of Read Across America in honor of Dr. Suess' Birthday.

In case you may not be familiar with Read Across America, here's a quick background. This year marks the 11th anniversary of the program that was started by the National Education Association in 1997 to emphasize the importance of motivating kids to read. It is celebrated every year on March 2, which is the birthday of author Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Here's a link to his biography, which I found interesting. I never knew he started writing his children's books as an attempt to combat illiteracy in kids. Now he's a household name and a legend among kids of all ages! http://www.nea.org/readacross/resources/seussbiography.html

Schools across the country find ways to celebrate Read Across America week to get their students excited about reading. Of course when Diane Rivers, librarian at Thornwell School for the Arts in Hartsville asked News 13 if we would like to participate, I jumped at the chance to travel back to elementary school and read to the kids! She had all kinds of fun activities for the kids throughout the schoolweek, ranging from visits from firemen and policemen, to the high school football players eating lunch with the fifth graders, and having people come in and read books to the classes.

When I got there, I spent time with a couple classrooms full of great students. They were wonderful listeners and we had a blast reading through Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Pickles to Pittsburgh, its sequel. We talked about each student's favorite kind of weather and what they each liked to do when it was rainy or sunny outside. It was fun to spend an afternoon with these kids, hopefully they thought it was fun too!

Just another little fun activity in honor of the events this week-
Here's part of a fun little email I got from a representative with the NEA, asking meteorologists to include reading in their forecasts- See how you do!

Can your audience identify the Dr. Seuss books which feature these weather phenomena?

a)
The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold wet day.

b)
And he sat there all night
Through a terrible storm
It poured and it lightninged!
It thundered! It rumbled!

c)
Won't look like rain.
Won't look like snow.
Won't look like fog.
That's all we know.

d)
"I know it is wet
And the sun is not sunny.
But we can have
Lots of good fun that is funny!”

e)
While these fleas flew,
Freezy breeze blew.
Freezy breeze made
These three trees freeze.

f)
On the fifteenth of May,
In the Jungle of Nool
In the heat of the day,
In the cool of the pool,

Answers: a) The Cat in the Hat; b) Horton Hatches the Egg; c) Bartholomew and the Oobleck; d) The Cat in the Hat; e) Fox in Socks; f) Horton Hears a Who!

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