Happy Birthday Hat for Dr. Seuss

In celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2, 1904) and Read Across America, which was recognized this year on March 3, 2008, every classroom in Delevan Drive Elementary School created a hat using the basic design of the "Cat in the Hat". To the right is a photograph of the hat our class submitted to the school library where it is currently being displayed. We chose Horton Hears a Who! as our theme for the project for several reasons. First, the animated movie version of the story is soon to be shown in theaters, and we felt that it would gather a lot of attention from our schoolmates. Second, we identify with the book's main message mentioned throughout, "a person's a person, no matter how small." You will notice in the photograph that each of the Whos displayed all over the hat we made shows a picture of each of our faces. We have thought about who in our lives represents Horton, the elephant that does his best to be our protector.

Who is your Horton? And do you agree with us that "a person is a person, no matter how small?"

Best Buy Teach Award

Hooray! Our classroom was recognized for its learning by Best Buy. Because we have been talking and sharing our learning with others outside our classroom through videoconferencing, our classroom blog, and other projects that allowed us to share "our living world", we were recognized with a Best Buy Teach Award. We treasure times like our connection with Los Angeles County Mueseum of Art back in January and our oppportunity to participate in the world-wide student conference called Megaconference Jr.

What's next? We'll be connecting with a park ranger at Crystal Cove State Beach to share our learning on tide pools and to ask a number of questions the students themselves will develop in preparation for the event. We will be preparing a set of images gathered by taking digital photos with cameras, finding/citing resources from the Internet, and scanning hand-drawn work. With our award, projects such as this one are supported through materials and tools that allow us to create, share, and learn about "our living world".