“The Cat in the Hat Comes Back”

If you check the archives, you’ll see “The Cat in the Hat” was one of our first books of the year.

Needless to say, when the Cat comes back, it is quite the event.

The glorious Chicago weather cooperated beautifully and dumped about four inches of snow just in time to coincide with the book…which is about the kids having to shovel snow, and that crazy Cat in the Hat making all sorts of mischief, the least of which are “snow spots”. We all helped read at story time, especially the ABC review near the end of the book. (oh, and ‘Voom’…must’nt forget the ‘Voom’!)

In honor of this story, we do all manner of crazy things, including our own “snowspot snowflakes”:

coffee filters, crayola marker, eyedroppers, water…let ‘em dry, cut ‘em up. The more color they use, the more dramatic the effect–they end up looking pretty tie-dyed and cool.

We also introduce the key word CIRCUMFERENCE this week…dripping water around the circumference of our coffee filters, measuring the circumference of our heads for our hats, discussing what else could have a circumference (snowballs, etc.) You get the point.

Color mixing, which preschoolers LOVE LOVE LOVE to do, came in the form of Sculpy clay–also, great fine motor development as students pinch, pull, roll, smash, twist, and stretch their clay to mix colors and create “crazy Cat beads”…they cook at a low temp and get sent home the following week:

Last, but not least, our crazy “Cat Hats” which let us all look like our fabulously fun antagonist.

“So you see!” laughed the Cat,
“Now your snow is all white!
Now your work is all done!
Now your house is all right!
And you know where my little cats are?”
Said the cat.
“That Voom blew my little cats
Back in my hat.
And so, if you ever
Have spots, now and then,
I will be very happy to come here again…”