The Cat in The Hat - lessons, printables, ideas, and more!

Get the book Cat in The Hat from your school library or amazon. Also you may wish to make a recording of The Cat in the Hat. Place the recording in your listening center.

Discuss rainy day activities and create a rainy day bulletin board by having the children list their favorite thing to do on a rainy day. Have them place their ideas on a cut-out of a raindrop. Place the raindrops on the board around a picture of a house and a cat in a hat. Title the board "Fun in the Rain".

Collect various pictures of hats and place them around the room. Discuss each hat and when or where you might wear the hat.

Get ready to read the book by discussing some questions;

Have you ever been left at home alone? Why or why not?
Discuss times when it took lots of courage for you to tell something to your parents.
What would you do if a stranger came to your home and you were all alone?
Discuss strangers.

Get ready to rhyme by making a pattern of a hat and one of a cat. Make many copies of each. On the cat cut-outs you may wish to write the words - play, cat, man, gown, two, sunny, said, fear, ball, say, pot, you, hall, hook, cake, mat, go, fox, now, bump, yes, so, fish , sit, you, and hot. On the hat cut-outs you may wish to write - day, do, all, bit, jump, hat, rake, how, dish, away, funny, that, fan, head, not, know, box, look, down, hear, to , mess, no, wall. Now you need to laminate all of the cards and place them in an envelope. You now have a rhyming center! The children place the hat on the correct cat! (NOTE: You can make your own or get our CD # 3 It has this Rhyme Center - this includes everything you need for a Cat in the Hat rhyming center. Student matches the two rhyming hats at the center. This also includes a center sheet for the student to complete after the center.(K-2)

Get ready to read by having the children learn sight words found in the story. Give each student some construction paper. Have them make it a book by folding it in half and decorating the front with the title Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. Have the students decorate the front of their books. Place the below words on the board and have the students write them on lined paper and place them in their book. - shine, play, take, mother, cut, two, there, day, cold, something, want, head, wall, should, thing, nothing, saw, our, house, said, white, red, cat , why, when, could, should, alone, have, these, was, good, what, like, know, little, looked, your, this, you. Practice these words often. (NOTE: We have A Cat in the Hat Word Bank on our CD # 3 - this includes the sight words found in the cat in the hat. Teacher prints and shares with class (K-2)

You can have your students complete various writing activities such as;

Writing - student writes about rainy days (2-3)
Summarize story - poetic form ( 1-3)
Writing activity - What to do on a rainy day (K-2)

All of these activities are found on our CDROM # 3

Play Roll & Color The Cats Hat
Split your students in to groups of two. One student gets a red crayon and the other gets a green crayon. Each group of two students is given a dice. They take turns rolling the dice and color in the number of hats they roll with their crayon. When the game board is all colored, the game is finished. The student who has the most hats colored wins. Or you can change the rules and say the student who has an odd number of hats colored wins or a student who has the least hats colored wins...

We have created a game board for you to use with this activity -
Click here to print this game board.

Song
Have you ever seen a "cat" in a "hat"? (clap clap)
Have you ever seen a "cat" in a "hat"? (clap clap)
No I've never,
No I've never,
No I've never,
No I've never, ever seen a "cat" in a "hat"? (clap clap)

You could do the rhyme above in the pocket chart using rhymes that the children brainstorm (ex. Have you ever seen a whale in a pail?). Then illustrated a class book using some of their rhymes.

"Cat in the Hat" alphabet game
Procedure: Have children sit in two rows facing each other. Give each team a paper hat. Hold up letters of the alphabet and if a team guesses the letter correctly, the letter is placed on their hat.
"Cat in the Hat" and "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back"

Fingerplay-(make 5 tiny hats for fingers)
One little cat on a sunny day
Put on his hat and went out to play
Two little cats when it started getting dark
Put on their hats and went to the park.
Three little cats when the sky was blue
Put on their hats and went to the zoo.
Four little cats by the kitchen door
Put on their hats and went to the store.
Five little cats on a sunny day
Put on their hats and they all ran away.

Lesson 1

1.) Go over the sight words on the board(hine, play, take, mother, cut, two, there, day, cold, something, want, head, wall, should, thing, nothing, saw, our, house, said, white, red, cat , why, when, could, should, alone, have, these, was, good, what, like, know, little, looked, your, this, you). Read the story orally to the students.

2.) Discuss the story with the students and have them draw a picture of the characters in the story.

3.) Encourage them to place the characters in a setting.

4.) Read through the story again. This time pause to ask questions.

5.) In The Cat in the Hat, the children were told not to have a guest when their mother was not home. Discuss rules that the students have at their houses.

6.) Have them write a list of rules they must follow at home.

Lesson 2

1.) Have the children reread the story first chorale with you and then have them each take turns reading the story to you.

2.) Have the students sequence the story. You could place the following sentence on a piece of paper in random order. Have each student cut-out each strip and then place them on a piece of paper in the correct order. Or you may wish to have a center set up at a pocket chart. Write each sentence on a sentence strip and have the students sequence them in the correct order. - It is raining, so Sally and her brother have nothing to do. The Cat in the Hat comes to the house. The cat wants to do tricks, but the fish tells him to go away. The cat does not listen to the fish and starts to do tricks and messes up the house. Mother is on her way home. The cat cleans the house and leaves. Mother comes home. Mother asks the kids about their day. The children do not know if they should tell their mother about their day. (NOTE: Printables For This Activity are Found on Our CDROM 3 - 1.) Cat in the Hat Sequencing Pocket Chart - this includes manipulative sentence strips for students to sequence in a pocket chart or at their desks. An activity sheet is also included.(1-3))

3.) Have the students do this dot-to-dot... http://www.randomhouse.com/seussville/games/dots/catdot.html

4.) Have the class play rhyme detective with partners. To prepare for this, make a sheet by having a page number from the book and then a word that rhymes with the word in the book. The children must find the word on the given page that rhymes with your word.

5.) Do this Umbrella Picture craft :

Materials Needed:

Large Paper
Paper Baking Cups
Glue
Crayons or Paint
Pipe Cleaners

Instructions:
Draw or paint a picture of what it looks like when it is raining outside. You can make it so it is just rain drops all over the paper, or you can make a whole scene with clouds, people, etc. Use your imagination!

Once you get your picture drawn, you can make umbrellas on it. Cut a baking cup in half, round off the edge that you cut so it is the shape of an umbrella. Cup and shape the pipe cleaners to look like the umbrella handles (if you do not have pipe cleaners, you can just draw the handle on your paper). Glue your umbrellas onto your drawing, making sure you glue down the handle first and then make the baking cup umbrella slightly overlap the handle.

Lesson 3

1.) Reread the story orally in groups. Work on fluency. You may want to rewrite the story as a script and assign parts to each child in the group. 2.) In groups create books using the following sentences; It is raining, so Sally and her brother have nothing to do. The Cat in the Hat comes to the house. The cat wants to do tricks, but the fish tells him to go away. The cat does not listen to the fish and starts to do tricks and messes up the house. Mother is on her way home. The cat cleans the house and leaves. Mother comes home. Mother asks the kids about their day. The children do not know if they should tell their mother about their day. Have the students write each sentence on a separate page and then draw a picture about each sentence in their books.

Lesson 4

1.) Do the help the cat find his hat maze http://www.randomhouse.com/seussville/games/maze/

2.) Complete the following phonographs lesson at http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ReadingCatInHat.htm - Student will learn various phonograms and identify these phonograms through several words in context. Also, student will learn to read four more difficult words (mother, trick, thing, fish).

Lesson 5

1.) Have the students read their books (lesson 3) orally to the class.

2.) Have the students rewrite a different ending to the story.

3.) Make a sheet with a statement a character in the story might say. Have the students place the characters name next to the statement.

4.) You may wish to try this craft with your class... http://www.makingfriends.com/ponybead/ponycathat.htm

Lesson 6

1.) Record each student reading the Cat in The Hat. If you made scripts, record the play.

2.) Write a poem in a house frame or a hat frame. Line 1 should have one word and state a characters name from the story. Line 2 should have 2 words and describe the character. Line 3 should have 3 words and tell the setting of the story. Line 4 should have 4 words and state the problem. Line 5 should have five words and state the solution. Line 6 is a free line and the students may write what they wish.

3.) Fingerplay-(make 5 tiny hats for fingers)
One little cat on a sunny day
Put on his hat and went out to play
Two little cats when it started getting dark
Put on their hats and went to the park.
Three little cats when the sky was blue
Put on their hats and went to the zoo.
Four little cats by the kitchen door
Put on their hats and went to the store.
Five little cats on a sunny day
Put on their hats and they all ran away.

To Celebrate your unit of study have a Cat in the Hat Party. Great ideas for the party can be found at http://www.boardmanweb.com/party/cat_in_the_hat_party.htm

Get the Book	Dot to Dot	Maze
Practice Adding	Includes Ideas and an activity Sheet	Teaching is A Work of Heart's Roll & Color the Hats Game Bord Directions are found above
Blank Hat Pattern	Many Printables From ABCTEACH	More to Come!

A Cute Unit on Cats	Three Great Ideas	A Cat in the Hat Reading Lesson
Phonograms Lesson	Cat in the Hat Ponybead Pattern	Pictures of Cat In The Hat Celebration - Includes student poems