This year, I chose to focus my lessons on Green Eggs and Ham to celebrate this special week. It's great that Dr. Seuss books are available in Chinese (bilingual editions--Chinese and English--can be found at ChinaSprout). Green Eggs and Ham is found at this link: Green Eggs and Ham is found at this link: http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSU002
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is found at this link: http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/BSC053
In addition, instead of having the students hear me read (a passive activity), or having them read in English (they end up not learning any Chinese that way), I thought I would try to teach them a few simple sentences, and then have them read the sentences in Chinese in each appropriate spot in the story. Green Eggs and Ham is ideal because there is quite a bit of repetition in the text, giving students a chance to hear and repetitively practice a few of the same lines. I opted to keep it simple, and just teach "I like" (我喜歡, wo3 xi3huan1), "I don't like" (我不喜歡 wo3 bu4 xi3huan1), and "Do you like?" (你喜不喜歡? ni3 xi3 bu4 xi3huan1?). Then, I would go around the class and each student would have to say one of those three sentences as appropriate (for example, for "I would not, could not, in a boat" the student would say "我不喜歡" (wo3 bu4 xi3huan1) and I would fill in the last part of the sentence about the boat. (在船裡 zai4 chuan2 li3). If I had more time with the students, I would give them vocabulary sheets and then they could fill in rest of the sentence they learned with the appropriate words themselves. As it is, I will be happy if they simply remember how to say "I like" (我喜歡, wo3 xi3huan1),and "I don't like" (我不喜歡 wo3 bu4 xi3huan1).
Finally, a fun FREE app that I downloaded allows you to insert photos into Cat in the Hat backdrops and is called the "Cat Cam".
http://www.oceanhousemedia.com/products/catcam/. (Did I forget to mention that I have spent today as "Thing Two" at school? Well, here's a photo of me using CatCam...) Oh, and that's not my usual hairstyle. ;-)