Earth Day, The Lorax, and a little Dirt!

For Earth Day Kelly and I fully embraced everything LORAX!


We started by reading the Dr. Seuss tale about a little orange creature who "speaks for the trees".


The day before we got together to examine the story.  We completed character analysis activities on both The Lorax and the Once-ler using an activity I created for my SmartBoard.

Using the SmartBoard to drag character traits to the appropriate
character. Some character traits are shared by both characters. 

Reading Buddy pairs used photocopied excerpts
 of the story to find character traits and support
 from the story. 

We had the Reading Buddies identify a character trait and write support from the story.  I modeled an example on the SmartBoard to make sure my first grade friends knew what was expected of them.


Then we had a debate about two famous Dr. Seuss villains-The Grinch and The Once-ler.  We had previously gotten together in December for celebration of Grinch Day and spent a day discussing and dissecting that story. So, we asked the kids: "In your opinion, who is the worst villain, The Grinch or The Once-ler?"  


Quite a debate occurred with quite a few reasons given and supported from the story.  In the end, we seemed to agree that The Grinch was the worst villain because he set out to hurt people on purpose, where the Once-ler caused his destruction accidentally.  Our Lorax SmartBoard activities is available or purchase at our TPT Store


in the afternoon we got together in Kelly's room to create decopage cups and plant our own land of the Lorax.  We used plastic cups and some watered-down glue to attach tissue paper to the cup and then coated the tissue paper with glue for a final coating.  Once that was completed the kids colored paper Loraxes and Trufflula Trees and mounted them on popsicle sticks.  The next day, once everything was dry we planted grass seed and the effect was quite wonderful. 

A Reading Buddy pair working on their pots. 

Coloring the decorations that will be placed in their
Land of the Lorax

  

Two finished products

Kelly's Lorax bulletin board

My Truffula Trees and personal Lorax writing tasks. 

I took pictures of my kids with The Lorax Mustache
so they could protect their trees. 

About two weeks later we have grass growing in our plastic cup pots.  The kids were thrilled to see this and Kelly's couldn't wait to take their Lorax Lands home so they could "cut the grass and watch it grow again".

This was another FUN and EDUCATIONAL 

Reading Buddies Activity!

Damien and Kelly

The Reading Buddies