Looking for Dr. Seuss activities for your toddler or preschooler? Here is a list of fun and easy ideas to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday and Read Across America day on March 2nd.
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Color Sorting Goldfish Crackers
This is a super simple activity that you can do during snack time! Give your child some color goldfish and tell them to separate them into each color. You can have a piece of red, orange, yellow, and green paper to help your child separate the colors. After they sort the goldfish, they can eat them!
Balance Fish
Another activity you can do with fish is balancing them on a paper plate. This can be a great gross motor activity. You can use Goldfish crackers or paper fish. Put fish on a paper plate and walk around the house. You can even add in skipping or hopping, all while trying to make sure the fish stay on the plate!
Magnet Fishing
This is a really fun acitivy for little ones. First, make some fish. I cut some fish shapes out of color paper and then laminated them. Alternately, you could cut some fish out of color foam. You just want to make sure the fish are waterproof if you want to put them in a bucket of water or water beads (or you could just fish on the floor!)
Next, attach a paper clip to each fish. Fill up a small tub with some water and water beads or spread fish out on the floor. Then, make a fishing pole. To make the fishing pole, I hot glued a magnet to a piece of string and then hot glued the string to a popsicle stick. You want to make sure your magnet is strong enough to pick up the fish.
Finally, your child can fish using the fishing pole. The paper clipped fish will attach to the magnet.
Count Fish
With all those fish you made for fishing, encourage your toddler to count them! You can also use the fish to work on naming colors.
Red Fish, Blue Fish Craft
This is a super easy and fun craft. Have your toddler paint two paper plates. One should be painted red and the other blue. You could give your toddler a paint brush or sponge to paint with. Once the plates are dry, cut a triangle out of one side of the plate and move it to the opposite side. This will make a mouth and fin for the fish. You can also draw more details, like eyes or another fin. Then, attach a popsicle stick to it to make a puppet!
Cat in the Hat
Name Puzzle
Create a fun puzzle for your child. Write each letter of their name on strips of red and white paper. This way, they can practice spelling their name and make it look like the hat in The Cat in the Hat. You can also use these strips of paper to make a hat for the child to wear with their name on it!
STEM Activity
A great STEM activity is stacking cups. I used red cups and white notecards. Then, the child can stack a red cup, a white notecard, then another cup. They can continue to do this until the tower falls. Another way to do this is to use white paper plates.
New Hat for Cat
Let your child design their own hat from The Cat in the Hat. There are many places you can find Dr. Seuss templates. I found hat templates here for free. You can let your child be creative and design their own hat with crayons, markers, stickers, etc. Also, you could focus on learning patterns.
Color Sort
This is a great fine motor activity and color sort. Use two red cups and cut a hole into the bottom. I then painted a few white stripes to make it look like the hat from The Cat in the Hat, although you could also use white tape. Then, I gave my daughter some white and red pom poms. In one cup, she put all white pom poms and in the other she put all red pom poms.
Green Eggs and Ham
Green Eggs Gross Motor
This is a fun activity! Make some green eggs out of felt. I used white felt to make the egg white. I just drew some egg shapes and cut them out. Then, make some green yolk circles and cut those out as well. Next, I hot glued the yolk to the egg white.
After making the green eggs, give your child a spatula. Have your child pick up a green egg, put it on the spatula, and carry it across the room. Then, go back and get another egg.
Counting Green Eggs
This can be a simple activity or you can make it more challenging depending on the age of the child. Take plastic green eggs, like the ones you get at Easter. Then, get some yellow pom poms. Your child can fill the plastic green eggs with egg yolks. You can even number the eggs and that is how many pom pom yolks go inside that egg.
Magnetic Play
This is a fun activity to retell the story of Green Eggs and Ham. This magnetic play set includes the characters from the book. After reading the book, you can retell the events of the story using these magnets. While reading, you can also display these characters as they are introduced. Your child can also make up their own story with these magnets!
Hide and Seek
In the book Green Eggs and Ham, it repeats here or there. You can make this into a fun hide and seek game for your little one. You can hide some objects around the room, some close to you and some far away. Then, you can ask your child to find the object and tell them if it’s here (meaning close to you) or there (meaning across the room). This is a great way to start learning directions.
Make Green Eggs and Ham
This is a super simple idea, but also really fun! Make your child some scrambled eggs and add in a little bit of green food coloring or spinach. You could also serve some ham with it.
Try New Foods
This book is great to teach the lesson of trying new foods. At the end of the story, the character finally tries the green eggs and ham and ends up liking it! This could be a great way to encourage your child to try new foods, just like in the book!
Fox In Socks
Match Socks
This is a super easy activity that your child will love. Take some socks of different colors and sizes, unmatch them, and put them in a pile. Then, tell your child to match the socks. Super simple, but lots of fun! You can also talk about the fox that wears socks and how his socks match in the book.
Decorate a Sock
I found a lot of Dr. Seuss sock templates on Pinterest. Just print one out and have your child decorate the sock! Let them be creative and make their sock unique. You could even have them try to recreate a sock to match one you have already made.
Find the Fox
The book focuses on a fox. You can take some time to teach your child about foxes. Another simple idea is to make a sensory bin full of “grass” (Easter grass or green paper) and many different animals, including foxes. Have your little one search through the bin and find all the foxes!
Block Stacking
In the book Fox in Socks, the fox starts to talk about stacking blocks. Take this idea and have your child stack some blocks. You can make it more challenging by giving them blocks of different sizes.
Dr. Seuss’s ABC Book
Letter Book
Make a book inspired by the ABC Book. Have your child complete each page of the book with the letter of the alphabet. You can think of words that start with that letter and have your child (or you) write the words. Instead of making the whole book, just pick out the letter their name starts with and have them complete that page.
If you want to check out this printable, check it out here in our TPT store.
Alphabet Sensory Bin
Make an alphabet sensory bin inspired by Dr. Seuss. I colored some rice red, blue, and yellow. If you want to learn how to dye rice for sensory bins, click here. I added the colored rice to the bin along with some plain white rice. Then I added some magnet letters, a few pom poms, and some printed pictures of Dr. Seuss characters (free printable here). When I gave this to my little one to play with, I also gave her a magnet. This was a fun activity of pulling out the letters with the magnet!
Yertle the Turtle
Stacking Turtles
Make your own turtles to stack just like the book! I made turtles from a green egg carton. I simply cut up the egg carton. Then, I add some white paper head and legs. I used hot glue to attach these to the body of the turtle. To play with the turtles, your little one can simply stack them and see how tall they can make the stack of turtles!
The Lorax
Recycle Sensory Bin
When reading The Lorax, I love to teach about recycling and the environment. One way to recycle is to reuse items instead of throwing them away. This is a simple sensory bin idea that reuses “trash.” I added some “trash” items to a sensory bin of rice. Some items you could use are boxes, cardboard, packing paper, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, egg cartons, etc. Then, just let your child play!
Paint the Trash
This is another activity that you could do for teaching about reusing items. Use “trash” like boxes, cardboard, packing paper, etc. and paint them! This is a super fun activity for young children. Just take this painting project outside or put down a sheet. Let your child explore the objects and paint!
I hope you enjoyed these Dr. Seuss activities for your toddler or preschool aged child!
For even more Dr. Seuss ideas, check out my post on Dr. Seuss activities and Read Across America ideas for elementary school here!
Thank you for Continually Learning with us!
Kyle and Sarah
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