Word Ladders, Spelling, and Writing Your Name -Cat in the Hat Style
D r Seuss Word Family Hat Craft
Today the children and I worked on a craft to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Along with the craft came some learning too! We made hats that look like the hat from The Cat in the Hat! Afterwards, we wrote words on the hats – I modified the work depending on the age and skill level of the children. There are so many different ways you can modify this craft in order to accommodate different levels of children’s abilities. Here is how we made our hats…
1) We started with a large/long piece of white construction paper. I also had a smaller size piece of red construction paper. I folded the red construction paper into a ‘fan’ – with the folds about the size of my thumb. I then asked the children to cut along the folded lines of the paper.
2) Next, we glued down the red pieces onto the white construction paper -making red and white stripes.
3) The next thing I did was a cut a slit about one inch from the bottom of the hat on each side of the paper. I cut a slit about one inch long. I next folded the sides of the top hat to create an easy line on which the children could cut.
4) My hat was finished! I then wrote a word ladder on the hat to help my beginning reader practice her phonics for the day.
Here are some pictures of the children making their hats. My girls decided to make a rainbow hat. My second grader decided she wanted to make a very tall top hat – so, she added extra colors to the top of hers. I helped my preschooler make the hat. He cut out green strips of paper for me, and then glued them onto the back of my red hat I had created. After we had made all our hats, each of the children had different skills they were needing to practice. For my Kindergartner – she is on Day 70 of the Sight and Sound Reading Program. I chose a few sight words from around Day 70 to help her practice reading those words. For my second grader, I dictated spelling words to her and she wrote them on her hat. For my preschooler, I wrote his name at the bottom of the hat and he practiced writing his name all the way up the hat. He had to pay special attention that he started his name with a capital letter and wrote the rest of it in lower case letters! Another way in which you could modify this activity is to write just letters on the hat and practice the sounds of the letters. You can also write word families/word ladders on your hats! Anyway – here are some pictures of my children making their hats! They turned out great, we had a great time… and, we all learned a few things along the way.
Cutting the strips of paper.
Gluing the strips of paper onto the white paper.
Writing their spelling words, or writing their name.
Ta-da! Our completed Cat in the Hat learning hats!
Do you have any suggestions to modify this activity for other levels and abilities.
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Cat in the Hat Game
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Madreen Karle is a master first grade reading teacher with over 30 years of classroom experience. She taught reading in a special needs and English as a Second Language classroom. After retiring she wrote a reading program to help others learn how to teach reading. She is a trusted educator and author of 5 books to help teach children to read and write. In addition to her books, she is a mentor for 3 websites that give reading teacher tips (Mrs. Karle’s Sight and Sound Reading, Mrs. Karle’s Reading Patch, and Mrs. Karle’s Handwriting Patch). Through her teaching she learned that confidence was the key to learning to read. A child who is not confident at reading does not like to read and struggles to read. Mrs. Karle created “sunshine moments” to help teach children how to grow their confidence and learn to read.
Meeghan Karle Mousaw (Madreen’s daughter) has her Master’s in Special Education. She has 8 years experience teaching children to read online. In addition, she developed a curriculum to teach children handwriting called The Handwriting Patch. With the Handwriting Patch learning is fun because children learn to draw and learn handwriting at the same time. In 2019 The Handwriting Patch curriculum became an amazon best seller the first year it was released, helping thousands of kids learn handwriting with a unique, fun method. She is mom to 6 kids, each with differently learning abilities and struggles.
The Reading Patch was established by the creators of Mrs. Karle’s Sight and Sound Reading. Together they have been featured on the NBC media outlets and Parents Magazine online. Over the last 8 years in their online platform, Madreen and Meeghan have worked tirelessly with teachers, homeschoolers and parents looking to help children learn to read to become a trusted authority in teaching children to read and advocating early literacy skills. They often partner with other educational experts to deliver the most current information to the Reading Patch community.
Those are so cute. I love how you combined the fun project with learning.
Thank you again! I LOVE this idea!
I love Dr Seuss and this is such a fun idea. I think it’s important to keep the learning going all year and this is a perfect summer time activity.
Such a fun and wonderful idea!
What a fun idea! I love that they have not only participated in learning, but have a cute product at the end of it! I am a sucker for kid artwork.
Cute idea! My oldest is struggling/fighting learning to read. Dr Seuss is her favorite to read right now, we have a number of them borrowed from the library right now with more on the way!
Awww, thanks! You can use it in so many ways. My kids always love making anything Dr. Seuss! 🙂