Last Monday, March 2nd, was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Schools across the country participate in the Read Across America program to celebrate this. I’d been working with an elite corp of 5th graders who would be visiting the pre-k, kindergarten, and 1st grade classrooms to read them a Dr. Seuss story and help them make a craft. It had been in the works since January (and believe me, next year I’m starting earlier!). I’d vetted the 5th graders, worked with the reading teacher, talked to the classroom teachers, practiced and trained the selected 5th graders. I’ve been eating, breathing, and sleeping this program for weeks now.

And then it snowed. Really snowed. Snow Day snowed, in a town that hasn’t closed for a snow day in quite some time. So Dr. Seuss Day was rescheduled for yesterday, and it was awesome.

The fifth graders did such a great job, I felt like a proud mama. I’d started making these hats out of white paper bags in library class a couple of weeks ago. Most of the little ones had already colored their hats with red stripes, and the 5th graders helped them roll up the bottoms and put them on. Some of the 5th graders did little impromptu fashion shows, having all the kids strut their stuff in those hats. Some of them were so shy about reading in front of a group that they hardly looked up from the book. But they all did an amazing job for what was asked of them, and now I want to throw them some kind of party as a reward. I’ll have to think about that….