Book Bag Activities for
Oh the Places You'll Go
By: October Lauffer

• Seuss, Dr. Oh the Places You’ll Go! New York: Random House. 1990.

Rationale:

• This book would be a great resource to use either at the beginning or end of the school year or for geography. One underlying theme in this book is motivation. Often time’s teachers do not know how to begin the year with the students and motivating the students to do their very best is helpful. On the other hand, teachers may not know how to send their students off as they move up to another grade level. With these activities, you will prepare your students to accomplish goals they have set from themselves and find a tool to encourage students to do their best and achieve to their potential. This book can also be used for geography. Students can learn geography in reference to the United States and/or around the World. You can also apply what your students have learned in their economics, geography, language arts and math classes to a real life situation.

Information about the author:

• Born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts, Theodor Seuss Geisel finished is bachelor’s education at Dartmouth College in 1925. From there he attended Oxford University and met Helen Palmer in 1927. Never finishing his doctoral studies, he returned to the U.S. and worked for a cartoon magazine called Judge. He worked there for 17 years.
• It was not until Dr. Seuss was on his way to Europe in 1936 that he came up with the idea for his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. This book was not very popular when it was published and it had to go through 43 rejections by publishers, before a friend of Dr. Seuss’s published it.
• World War II sent Dr. Seuss to Hollywood were he wrote for documentaries and a cartoon called Gerald McBoing-Boing. This cartoon won him an Oscar later on.
• As the mid and late 1950’s approached, there was a great movement in education to get more students literate. This occurred because of inadequate books and students, quite frankly, found the books to be boring. Dr. Seuss sent “a list of 400 words”, but that was reduced to 250 words. Then Dr. Seuss wrote The Cat in the Hat using only 220 words in the book – was “instant success”. Then in 1960 Dr. Seuss received a bet that he couldn’t “write an entire book using only fifty words. The result was Green Eggs and Ham.”
• In 1967, Dr. Seuss’s first wife, Helen Palmer, died and Dr. Seuss “married Audrey Stone Diamond in 1968”. On September 24, 1991 Theodor Seuss Geisel died.

Questions to use with the story:

• Before: Ask students to create a list of places they would like to visit. Have students make a list of events or things they would like to accomplish, if nothing was to get in their way.
• During: Have students listen to the story and find their favorite word, line or phrase from the story.
• After: 1. Have student’s write why they have selected the part from the book that they did. Using the list of items they would like to accomplish, have students give instructions has to HOW they will go about achieving their list.

List of 10 Activities:

• Goals: Students will write 5 short term and 5 long term, personal goals. Along with each goal, they will write at least 3 steps they will take to accomplish each goal. The first set of goals the students make should be for themselves. What are 3-5 (depending on age) short term goals they want to succeed at and then have them discuss 3-5 long term goals. With each goal, they must write at least 2 steps as to how they will accomplish the goals and what their reward will be for achieving it successfulGoals
• Students will create their own story, but write the book in the style of writing Dr. Seuss uses. The book can either be about life or a beginner’s book for young children. They must include illustrations and rationale and/or purpose behind for the book they have written.
• Fave city – Have student’s select a city that they would like to visit and ask them to research some sites they could visit. They will need to use at least 3 sources, including their cities’ chamber of commerce and the Internet.
• Students will create driving directions from Manhattan to the city they would like to visit. They are able to use any resources, except the internet (since that makes the directions for them.) Some tools to use are atlas, road maps, parents, etc.
• Each student must write 3 classroom goals and explain how they intend on accomplishing them and what their reward would be for a successful completion. See #1 for all required information.
• In small groups, have students come up with 1 thing they would like to change about their school. They should provide evidence has to why the school should change and then give ideas on how they school should go about implementing their ideas. Each group comes up with their own idea and then at the end a list will be made and sent to the principal to look at.
• Create an author bulletin board: Divide students into groups and give them another book that Dr. Seuss has written. After reading the book, students will create a poster that includes the following information: a summary of the book; favorite word used in the book and explain why they have selected it, favorite quote (phrases) and explain why they selected that quote, and an illustration that tells the story or scenes from the story, etc.
• Ask students to write about what their dream vacation. Some details they should include are: the type of atmosphere surrounding the place they would stay, the weather, places they would visit, purpose of wanting to visit there, etc.
• Introduce different types of music basis on the places students would like to visit – or is their dream vacation spot. Take a survey of the cities or countries the students would like to visit and then bring in some music that is representative of the particular cities or countries. (for example: Chicago – jazz, Nashville – country, etc.)
• On extremely large sheets of paper – draw the US and then have students select their favorite city within the states. Have them locate their town on the map and then let them make an 8½ X 11 poster that depicts the area they would enjoy sightseeing in their town.

Bibliography of other related books:

“Oh the Places He Went: a Story about Dr. Seuss” by Maryann Weidt Oh the Places He Went

Other books written by Dr. Seuss:

• Oh the Things you Can Think Up
• Oh Beyond Zebra!
• Horton Hatches the Egg
• Horton Hears a Who!
• The Sneetches And Other Stories
• My Book About Me
• Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?
• Your Only Old Once
• Seuss-isms For Success

Assessment:

Questions to ask students about “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”:

• What type of measuring table does America use, compared to other countries.
• When Dr. Seuss says, “NO! That’s not for you!” What did he mean?
• Dr. Seuss says, “I don’t choose to go there.”, when do you find yourself thinking that? Why?
• Near the end of the book, Dr Seuss writes, “There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.” What type of things do you suppose he is speaking about – to you.
• Lets change one of the lines in the book, pretend Dr. Seuss wrote “(10 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)”, how would that change the story line?
• What is the underlying theme of this book? How did you come to that conclusion?