My Many Colored Days

Our school had a door decorating contest in honor of Dr. Seuss, and I thought I would show you what my friends came up with.  I had already planned a poetry lesson around his book My Many Colored Days.

This is one of my favorite Seuss books.  While it is great for all ages, it lends itself nicely to the upper elementary crowd.  If you are not familiar with this Seuss book, I have linked to a YouTube reading of it at the end of this post.  It is essentially about how different colors correlate to different feelings.  It shows how some days are certain colors/emotions, but we can feel several different colors/emotions in a given day.

We watched the YouTube reading, and then I created a chart with all the colors mentioned in the book.  I used a three column chart.  The first column had the colors, the second the corresponding emotion.  The kids made the same chart in their writing notebook and had the option of assigning a color any emotion they felt was more appropriate.  Then, in the last column, we listed a time we felt that way or something that makes us feel that way.  My friends then used the chart to help them write an emotion color poem.  We haven't yet done our poetry unit, so this was sort of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing but they were awesome.  I was very please with the final products.

I had traced the little person figure in the book and made lots of copies.  My friends colored one to match their poem and then two for our door decoration.  All in all, I think it came out nicely.  Take a look!

Here are a couple of pictures of our door.  Our windows had to be open, and let me tell you it isn't easy to cut out a window neatly!

The rest of the display ran alongside the door.   We don't have bulletin boards outside our room because of the lockers.  I have become the queen of vertical displays! 

Just ignore my pocketbook!  The chairs are out because we had parent conferences this week.  The blocked out paper next to my door is the list of conference appointments.

Here is the sign I made up close.  I am really happy with how it came out.  I'm totally laminating this to use again.

On the lockers, I mad another smaller sign by copying the title page from the book.  I then hung the poems on the lockers.  Here are a few.

I was very proud of my friends.  They had a fun time doing it, and I was pleased because I didn't want to just do a Dr. Seuss activity for the sake of doing one.  I wanted it to have some meaning.  This turned out to be a perfect fit for my friends.  Better than the poems were the conversations I heard as they were working.  There were some really deep (for ten and eleven year olds anyway!) conversations about the emotions they feel and how they handle them. 

Here is the reading of My Many Colored Days.  Enjoy!

I wish I could show you the doors of my collegues.  Mine is very tame in comparison.  Many of them went all out.  They are amazing!   So, what have you done in honor of Dr. Seuss this week?