S.J. Preston and Purchase Elementary Students Connect with The Lorax

Third graders from S.J. Preston and Purchase Elementary schools enjoyed the classic children’s book The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and the Universal Pictures’ animated motion picture starring the voices of Danny DeVito, Taylor Swift and Zac Efron as part of an ongoing enrichment multi-media workshop series.

The library media specialists from the two schools, Deborah Goldstein at Purchase and Thomasine Mastrantoni have developed a program that encourages children to read a book, watch the movie and connect the two works through interactive activities.  Students were paired together after viewing the movie by finding another student with a word that rhymed with the word they were given at the beginning of the afternoon.

This year’s connection stations included visualization exercises such as drawing cartoons in the style of The Lorax, creating a word cloud using the Web 2.0 tool Tagxedo, or watching video interviews that helped bring The Lorax and the residents of Thneedville to life. Students were also encouraged to learn about recycling and the impact that materials have on the world’s landfills.  Students filled containers with “tires” (Cheerios) and learned about the time and techniques used to break down the components.

Other successful Read, Watch, and Connect workshops have included The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick – primarily geared toward 4th and 5th graders and Judi Barrett’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for younger elementary aged students.