No matter what grade you teach or what math concept you are working on, you can incorporate the Dr. Seuss theme into your math instruction to celebrate his birthday and Read Across America week! Here are some ideas specific to a few of his books as well as some general ideas. Every link included is to a free activity.
Links checked 3/3/23
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Use goldfish crackers as manipulatives at any level for whatever math concept your class is working on. For younger kids they are great for non standard measurement and for skip counting; middle grade kids can use as a manipulative for equal groups for multiplication and division. The colored ones can be used for patterns, graphing, fractions as parts of a set, and beginning probability. You could also give students goldfish and have them write a word problem where the number of fish they have will be the answer.
Another idea is to have a pond full of paper fish for kids to “catch” and add to a graph. This could be at any level from simply graphing by color to having math problems on them for students to graph by answer.
- Here’s a free download for a goldfish estimation center for any grade level from TPT
- One Bowl Two Fish Number Bond Printables
- One Fish Two Fish Number Match for preschool/kindergarten
Horton Hears a Who
- Pom pom activities for early grades
- Printable math mat for intermediate grades (includes area/perimeter, critical thinking, division)
- Make a timeline for the events of the story by ordering the dates and times
- Have students write a math word problem using the 3,000,000 clovers.
- STEM challenge from TeachEngineering: make a paper cup phone
- Free color by numbers for preK/kindergarten
Ten Apples Up On Top
- Free counting book printable for preschool/kindergarten
- Thumbprint art counting activity for preschool
- Apple Fractions free printable activity (cutting paper apples into fractional parts)
- Apple STEM for early elementary
- STEM challenge: apple boat (all ages)
- STEM challenge: apple tower (all ages)
- Preventing apples from oxidizing STEM
The Foot Book
This book can be inspiration for measurement units or for this Human Body Ratios activity from BioEd Online for grades 3-7. Did you know that a person’s foot is roughly equivalent in length to their forearm?
The Cat in the Hat
While this activity is written for young children it could easily be adapted for older children putting fractions, decimals, or integers on the number line, or using multiplication sequences.
- Fractions- make paper Cat in the Hat hats. Color the stripes with different colors and write the fractions for each color. For example 2/10 blue, 3/10 red, 1/10 green, 4/10 yellow.
- Skip Counting Puzzle
- The Cat Juggles 2D Shapes printable book (with shape names to trace)
- STEM challenge: Stack the Cat’s Hat (all ages)
The Lorax
- File folder game for adding or subtracting with pom poms
- Telling Time With The Lorax
- Tufted Tree non standard measurement for kindergarten
- Truffula Tens Trees
- Preschool STEM challenge
- Engineers Speak for the Trees (grades 3-5 STEM Engineering)
General Free Math For Dr. Seuss Week Printables
- Seusstastical Roll and Cover (adding 3 numbers)
- A Cat With a Hat and Friends Math Centers (missing addend and 2 digit addition)
General Math For Dr. Seuss Week Ideas
- Graph your students’ favorite Dr. Seuss books. Take a survey of others to add more data.