Flannel Friday: Colors are Fun ~ Dr Seuss-style!!

***BOOK GIVEAWAY!***

(Learn how to win a Dr. Seuss book at the end of this post.)

I am so excited about Dr. Seuss's birthday and Read Across America! Both are celebrated nationwide on or around March 2nd each year. The celebration is an exciting way to bring families together for fun and learning based on the popular classic children's books written by Dr Seuss over the years. 

His books have encouraged generations of children to love reading. And by the looks of it, they will continue to encourage many, many more generations, too!

What will you be doing on March 2nd to celebrate reading and learning Seuss-style?

We have celebrated Dr Seuss' birthday for many years at our library but, this year, we are actually doing TWO weeks of Dr Seuss activities!

We are starting with several Dr. Seuss Storytimes and Pajama Parties and then we will end our celebration with a Seuss-tacular Family Game Night! 

This week for Flannel Friday, I want to share a part of what we will be doing at our Pajama Parties. It is very difficult for me to choose which book I want to share (because there are so many that I love!) but I finally settled on one that is not well-known as a Dr. Seuss book. It was published in 1996 after his death.

Each year, many of my storytime parents are surprised when I introduce this book. A lot of them (in fact, most of them) have either not seen or have not heard of the book before or they did not realize that Dr. Seuss was the author.

The book is:

My Many Colored Days

It is a delightfully simple book that links colors, animals, and emotions. The gorgeously bright and colorful illustrations ~ done by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher ~ perfectly match the rhyming text. Both the words and the illustrations are expressive. They flow together seamlessly and are magical!

Because the illustrations so wonderfully suit the words, I like to the share the book just as it is.

Then I like to follow it up with a re-telling of the story using a magnetic set or, now, a flannel set.  We also play a game called "Which Animal?" (I'll try to remember to explain the game later in my post.)


The pieces of my sets can never compare to the illustrations themselves!

That being said, I do still believe that there is value in making the sets and sharing them with young children. They are useful for sequencing, for color recognition, for learning the names of the animals, and for jumpstarting a discussion on emotions and feelings ~ just to name a few of the uses.


For those of you who have never seen this book, here is a brief outline:

At the beginning, there is an introduction to the idea that each day brings different feelings and emotions. Then the book takes the reader through the "different colored days" by highlighting an animal and color for each day.


There are double-spread pages for each of ten colors/animals/feelings.  I will share a close-up of my flannel of each animal but I will only share a few quotes from the book. 


The creation of the flannel animals were done by using felt and diecuts. Some were made with the Ellison diecut machine and some were cut by hand because I wanted to change the size of the animal. I also created a few of the animals by drawing freehand because I wanted the animal to resemble the illustration more.

"On Bright Red Days how good it feels to be a horse and kick my heels!"

Blue Day

Brown Day

"Wheeeeeeeeeee!" It is a Yellow Day!

Gray Day

"Then all of a sudden I'm a circus seal! On my Orange Days that's how I feel."

Green Day
(This is one that I freehanded to make it as much like the illustration as possible.)

Purple Day

Pink Day

"Then come my Black Days. MAD. And loud. I howl. I growl at every cloud."
(This is my FAVORITE page! We make mad faces and howl and growl as loud as we can!)

Then a "Mixed-Up Day" happens..."But it all turns out all right you see.
And I go back to being...

me."

This has been one of my favorite books since my own four boys were little. When I was a preschool teacher, I shared it with every one of my classes. And now as a children's librarian, I share it at least once a year with each of my storytime groups. It is a book that speaks to me on so many levels. When I read it, I can even hear different types of music in my head that go along with each page, each animal, each emotion...

I hope that you and your little one(s) will find as much learning and enjoyment from My Many Colored Days as my family has. 

Thank you, Dr. Seuss!

For more Dr. Seuss learning activities and book-sharing ideas, please visit my  

Let's Celebrate Books ~ Dr. Seuss Style! post.

***Book Giveaway***

To enter the drawing for a FREE Dr. Seuss book, 

please recommend this blog to one of your friends 

AND 

share your favorite Dr. Seuss book or quote 

in the comments below. 
Comments must be made by Midnight on Thursday, March 1st.

HAPPY READING TOGETHER!

Here’s Flannel Friday information for this week:

This week’s Flannel Friday roundup is hosted by Meghan at  Busy Crafting Mommy. This is her first time to host so be sure to give her lots of love and thanks for taking on this HUGE task!

Round up archives and host schedule is at So Tomorrow.

Visually scan all the Flannel Friday posts at Pinterest.

Talk about storytime and flannelboards at the Flannel Friday Facebook Page.

 

Follow Flannel Friday on Twitter with the #flannelfriday hashtag. (You don’t have to be on Twitter to check this out.)

And, last but not least, if you’re a contributor, there is an awesome blog button from Melissa and you can grab it from the right hand menu at Mel’s Desk!