Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians
Special to the Valley News
The students and teachers at Soboba Tribal Preschool on the Soboba Indian Reservation started off the month of March by celebrating Dr. Seuss Day. They continued the festivities during the week of March 11-15 with special days to salute Dr. Seuss. In between, the school will be hosting its annual Scholastic Book Fair, with lots of Dr. Seuss titles for sale.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, known as Dr. Seuss, was born Saturday, March 2, 1904, and his first children’s book “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” was published in 1937. The author and illustrator, a favorite among young readers for his deft use of nonsense words, playful rhymes and unusual characters, was celebrated by Soboba’s young students Friday, March 1.
The preschoolers did crafts centered around “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish,” which was released in 1960. Pre-kindergarten students listened to a book edited by Dr. Seuss and written by Robert Lopshire called “Put Me In the Zoo” about a polka-dotted leopard who could change its spots. Afterwards they broke into small groups to do crafts. One was to make their own spotted leopard. Another group made Truffula trees out of marshmallows, similar to the ones found in “The Lorax” and the final group colored red and white striped hats just like the one worn by “The Cat in the Hat.”
Kindergarten students were kept busy with many STEM activities that involved mathematics and building. There was a table full of outlines of characters from various Seuss books for the children to color and they had to cut out red and white rectangles of different sizes to create their own hats.
Snacks fit right into the theme as they enjoyed Dr. Seuss juice, Lorax oranges, green Grinch grapes and Cat in the Hat kabobs made with layers of white bananas and red strawberry slices.
For Dr. Seuss Silly Week, the students were asked to participate in various ways. Monday, March 11, was “I Am Not Going to Get Up Today,” and the students were encouraged to wear their pajamas to school. Tuesday celebrated “Fox in Socks,” and the children could wear whatever silly socks they wanted to wear. Wednesday was “Wacky Wednesday,” and students wore mismatched clothes, fixed their hair in a crazy style or expressed themselves in whatever creative way they wanted. Thursday was all things “Cat in the Hat,” and students were encouraged to wear something with stripes or their favorite hat. For “Green Eggs and Ham” Friday, the children could wear something green and enjoy actual green eggs and ham cooked by the school chef during their nutrition break.
For more information on the upcoming book fair, visit https://bookfairs.scholastic.com/content/fairs/home.html. More on the Soboba Tribal Preschool can be found at https://preschool.soboba-nsn.gov.
