Cats in Hats, Hop on Pop, Hip and Hop and a Snake Named Slim

There were cats and hats. Writers and readers. Hop on Pop. Hip and Hop and a Snake Named Slim.

Students at both and elementary schools had a full day of fun activities all centered around Dr. Seuss' motto – reading is fun – on Friday as the schools celebrated Read Across America.

The famous striped red and white hat topped the heads of every student at both schools. Even some of the staff members wore the famous hat like Lincoln School Media Specialist Kathy DiGuglielmo who was in full Dr. Seuss attire all day. The Cat in the Hat was also seen walking around the halls of the schools as well.

Mayor Rose Heck visited both schools reading Dr. Seuss tales like “Oh Say Can You Say” “Green Eggs and Ham” and “The Cat in the Hat” to the students.  

Students filed into the media center to meet with children’s author Doug Snelson who read from his latest book “The Fable of a Snake Named Slim.”

The children interacted with Snelson as he walked them through the tale of Slim a snake who is just a bit different from his friends. As he goes through his adventure, he learns that he doesn’t have to be exactly like his friends and is just fine being himself.

Children’s author Jef Czekaj gave an interactive reading of his book “Hip and Hop Don’t Stop.” Using samples of hip hop music he had the students rapping along with him to the tale of Hip the turtle and Hop the rabbit, who normally wouldn’t be friends, but their rapping skills bring them together.

Czekaj, who is the step-son of high school teacher Laura Czekaj, explained the process he goes through in creating stories like Hip and Hop and the many fun characters that are in the story relatable to today’s pop culture like Bee-yonce and Ludafish. He took out his beat up old notebook to show them that all his ideas start right there. The students were able to see drafts of earlier versions of pages that later would be edited, redrawn and put in the final book.

students read to the younger grades and also conducted activities for grades third, fourth and fifth. High school teacher Erin Schneewiess said the high schoolers planned a super hero based activity for the third grade students. Fourth grade students went through an exercise of writing their own autobiographies and the fifth grade students were given a anti-bullying based activity.