Select a particular Dr. Seuss story and have third grade students create their renderings of particular characters. For the story "Horton Hears a Who," have children cut out elephant ears from construction paper. Decorate the ears and attach them to plastic headbands or elastic bands using tape or glue. Have students wear their "Horton Ears" as they read the story aloud as a class or in small groups. Consider making hats out of construction paper to tie in with a group reading of "Cat in the Hat." Have children come up with other suggestions for wearable crafts from their favorite Dr. Seuss stories.
Download and print word puzzles from the Internet that are geared to the specific Dr. Seuss stories you are reading in or out of the classroom. Crosswords and seek-and-find word puzzles are a great way to engage the minds of third graders and help them to comprehend story ideas as well as practice their spelling. As an alternative to printed word puzzles, choose a specific word from a Dr. Seuss story and challenge the students to locate the page that the word is found on. For instance, in the story "The Foot Book," challenge students to find the word "pig" or "clown" within the text of the story. Create a list of words for them to find as they are reading through the story.
There are always things that can be counted in a Dr. Seuss story. Challenge children to go on a counting frenzy to total up the number of fish in the book "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," or how many times Sam appears within the pages of "Green Eggs and Ham." Children can also count the number of items The Cat manages to stack in "The Cat in The Hat." Challenge them further by incorporating simple addition and subtraction using the illustrations within the pages of the Dr. Seuss stories.
Third graders can begin to practice with writing their own Dr. Seuss styled stories by creating rhymes with their own characters. Have children create their old wild collections of characters and write their own stories. These projects can be done individually, in groups or as an entire class. Writing activities strengthen word building skills and also foster creativity in the minds of young children. Encourage them to illustrate their stories and put them on display for parents and other students to see.