A Turn to Learn

Ed Tech Integration in the Elementary Classroom

My New Cat in the Hat Classroom Theme!!!

by //

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

While some of you are winding down your school year, I still have two months to go… and I decided that a classroom redesign was in order.  I’ve come across so many cute classroom themes online (jungle, wild west, pirates), but none of them quite worked with what I already had in my classroom.

Finally, it hit me… I needed to make give a classroom a Dr. Seuss theme, and since my favorite Seuss book is Cat in the Hat, I used that as my inspiration for my room!

Update: For those of you who have been asking about the set, I have redesigned to abide by all copyright laws and reposted it here.  It looks different from the pictures below but it’s still super cute!

Cat in the Hat Classroom Theme 1

 

Word Wall

My first order of business was the “Word Wall” or actually, in my case, the “Word Window.”  The background was already the perfect shade of blue, I just needed to add Sally and Nick!

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

I ended up making the pictures for my window using my smart board!  I pulled up the image of Sally and Nick onto my computer, hung bulletin board paper up on the smart board, and traced the image.  Nice and easy!

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

Morning Meeting

Next, I needed to revamp my morning meeting resources.  I use a growing number line for how many days we’ve been in school, so I started with that.  I used my favorite font, and put red circles around the numbers you say when you count by fives, and “Cat in the Hat” hats on the numbers you say when you count by tens.  And yes, I re-did the numbers for the place value chart so the font matched!

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

After that, I redesigned my “Morning Helper” list.  Each day, one of my students teaches morning meeting.  I use a list posted on the wall as a rotating schedule to keep it fair for everyone!  My school has a poster machine that prints in color, so I was able to make this sign very large… to given you an idea of size, that scroll is a piece of legal paper!

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

Then, I re-did my months of the year sign!  Even though I’m not in a bilingual class, the kids love learning other languages, so I teach them the months of the year in Spanish as well!  Again, this was printed on our wonderful poster machine!

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

Obviously, I needed to do a sign for the days of the week also.

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

I stick the days of the week to the wall using velcro.

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

I also made names for the days of the week that match the colors/textures of the other signs I made for the months/days.

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

Centers

Here’s a close up of my centers groups: I made it look like the Cat in the Hat was presenting the center groups, and I love the texture I put on the word centers!
Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

Schedule

I put that same texture on the new title I made for “Our Schedule” below.

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme 13

 

Reading Partners

I know, I really went overboard!  And I’m not even done showing you everything yet!  Now that morning meeting is over… you have to check out what I did in the rest of the class!  We do a routine during independent reading where we read with a buddy.  The students read for three minutes independently, then for three minutes partner one (“Thing 1”) reads, and for three minutes partner two (“Thing 2”) reads.  I have these signs at the students seats to remind them who their partner is and give a constant visual of which partner is reading first.

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme

 

More and Less Math

Another main part of our morning meeting is “More and Less Math.”  We look at the number of days we’ve been in school and figure out what day it will be when we have one more, and what day it was when we had one less.  We model this will the sticks from our place value chart and reference our number line in the process.  The kids love it.  And… now it clearly goes along with the theme!

Cat in the Hat Kindergarten Classroom Theme

 

More or Less Math Freebie!

To get the freebie that comes along with this set, click the picture below!  There are now two versions of this freebie thanks to Busy Bee, who left a great comment below!  Thank you for pointing out how this could be confusing for students!

They may look the same, but the location of “ten less” and “ten more” is switched so it mimics the  look of a 100 chart and corresponds with the Envision Math Program!

Note: This freebie is hosted on Google Docs.  Once you open the file, click File > Download to save onto your computer!

 

Decorate Your Own Room!

To get the the entire Classroom Theme set on Teachers Pay Teachers, click the picture below.  It does differ from the images above but I actually love the redesign even more than the original!Cat in the Hat Classroom Theme 1

Comments

    • TurntoLearn says

      Thanks! I didn't realize how long of a post I wrote until I finished it… and I just added even more pictures now because as I was writing it, I was thinking of all of the things I forgot to take pictures of!

  2. Sarah A says

    What program on your computer did you use to create the posters and stuff? I want to make my own classroom theme designs, but I'm not sure where to begin, really!

    • TurntoLearn says

      I used a few different programs… most of the work (days of the week, Months, More and Less Math, and Morning Helper Sign) I did in Adobe Photoshop. I did the scroll for the Morning Helper sign in Adobe Illustrator. The number of days we've been in school I did in Microsoft Visio, which is an AutoCAD type program. Visio is my ALL TIME favorite program… I got hooked on it back when I did CAD Drafting in high school and make a ton of my stuff in it now!

      If you have any other questions, let me know. Or, if you want me to design a theme for you, I'd be more than willing to do that as well! I had a blast doing this one!

  4. starsie says

    I will be awaiting your TpT pack with bated breath! I've switched from a Garfield theme to Dr. Seuss but want to take it over the top and your pack will help me do it! 🙂

    – Tracey

    • TurntoLearn says

      So true! I'll have to add it to my Technology Tuesday once I figure out how to do it all in Gimp! I'd hate to write a tutorial for Photoshop since a lot of people wouldn't be able to do it. I'll play around with it though and add it to Tech Tuesday when I figure it out!

  7. Janine says

    I so need this! I rotate between 5 or 6 different classroom themes and I am thinking that my Seuss theme is up for this coming year! This would be a great addition to my collection.

    faithfulinfirst.blogspot.com

    • TurntoLearn says

      I'm so glad you like it! If you can think of anything thing else I can add to the set be sure to let me know! This is my first classroom theme so I'm sure I'm missing out on some things!

  8. Busy Bee says

    Your classroom is adorable! Love the freebie, but I'm afraid it would confuse my students. We use the 10 more, 10 less with the hundreds board. The 10 more is at the bottom and 10 less at the top. This is the way it is in the Envision series.

    • TurntoLearn says

      Thank you for the great recommendation! I hadn't even thought of that, but it actually makes more sense! I put "ten more" on top, since I think of it as being bigger, but it is the opposite of the 100 chart! I've updated the freebie to include a version that has ten more at the bottom and ten less at the top! Thank you!

  18. Mrs D says

    Thanks for redirecting me to your Dr. Suess themed 100 board activity. It's always so hard to help students see the relations between numbers, and this sort of activity helps.

    (found post through Manic Monday)

  20. shawn hurst says

    Hi. Could you tell me where you got the image of Sally and Nick for the silhouette you traced from your smart board? I have a Cat in the Hat theme and I would love to do this to put in my classroom window. Thank you.

Try This Tutorial

Try This Activity

Popular Posts