Local elementary students celebrate birthday of Dr. Seuss
It's not unusual to see green foods in a school cafeteria - but green eggs and ham? Kids from Eudora's Nottingham Elementary enjoyed the famous dish to honor Dr. Seuss' 103rd birthday. Enlarge video
Kindergartners from Nottingham Elementary School in Eudora listen to Eudora High School sophomore Derek Scrimsher read Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" during a birthday celebration for the famous author. The students also ate green eggs and ham prepared by a culinary arts class at the Eudora-De Soto Technical Education Center in Eudora.
Bobby Lounsbury, left, and Cecelia Baise, kindergartners from Nottingham Elementary School, celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss by eating green eggs and ham and listening to the book of the same name.
Autumn Foster was singing and swaying as she waited at the table with her friends.
"Green eggs and ham, green eggs and ham," Autumn sang quietly. "I like mine fried, nice and brown. I like mine turned upside down."
She finished the final verse doing some hand gestures: "Flip 'em, flop 'em, don't drop 'em."
Autumn was among about 120 kindergartners from Eudora's Nottingham Elementary School who took part in an annual event Thursday - a feast of green eggs and ham in honor of the Dr. Seuss book of the same name.
"We've been doing this for 10 years. It helps us teach rhyme to the kids," said John Woodward, a kindergarten teacher who originally had parents serve up the green fare at the school.
But three years ago, Woodward asked Jason Gray, who teaches high school culinary classes, to help with the cooking.
Since then, Gray has incorporated the event to honor the memory of the late Theodor Seuss Geisel, whose birthday is today, into a culinary arts class for high school students from Eudora, De Soto and Lawrence.
The older students get practice planning, cooking and serving a banquet meal. And the kindergartners get to go on a field trip to the Eudora-De Soto Technical Education Center to get a taste of one of Dr. Seuss' best books.
Dressed as Seuss' Cat in the Hat, Derek Scrimsher, a Eudora sophomore, read "Green Eggs and Ham" to the kindergartners.
And then the feast began.
How were the green eggs and ham? Some students took a taste and pushed them away.
But others were more adventurous. Some even ended up with green tongues.
Bobby Lounsbury held up a fork of green ham, smiling as his mother snapped his photo.
Sitting next to him, Cecelia Baise took another bite of green eggs.
"This is delicious," she said.
Birthday party
Children ages 5 and older are invited to a party this weekend to celebrate the birthday of the late Dr. Seuss and his classic children's book "The Cat in the Hat," which turns 50 this year.
The party, featuring games and activities inspired by Seuss' books, will be from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vt.
Activities are sponsored by the library and by students from Kansas University's English department. Douglas County Extension and the library will be providing treats for the author's 103rd birthday.
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Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Hee hee. Anyone here remember the SNL skit where Rev. Jesse Jackson read this book?
Coach_Eric (anonymous) says…
That skit was awesome! Good memory, that'll keep me laughing for a while, thanks Raging!
cog_nate (Nate Poell) says…
I remember doing this same thing in grade school. Glad it's still going on.
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Of course, am I the only one that thinks it's a bit odd that we teach kids to read using books that have over 40% of it's words made up?
crazyks (anonymous) says…
Gee, did they use the whole bottle of food coloring on those eggs?
I'm surprised some do-gooder didn't complain that they were feeding the kids eggs and ham to begin with.
Raging, culture, including literature, influences language. It always has. Have you ever heard of a catch-22 situation? Or somebody being on the receiving end of a whitewashing job? I'm pretty sure those terms didn't exist in language until the books existed.
It's not a bad thing. New words, from various sources, enter our language every year. They even add them to the dictionary. Did you know that teen-ager and to-night used to be hyphenated words? Things change. Language isn't static.
Besides, the Dr. Seuss books for younger children contain less made up words. It's only the ones for older children, like The Lorax, that use a lot of made up words.
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
I don't have a problem with new words. I don't have a problem with Dr. Suess. But in order for a word to be introduced as "new" in any method, a form of definition should be presented, which does not occur in Dr. Suess.
He's not the only one to do this though. This method of introducing new words without any sort of definition or even an insinuation was heavily practiced by William Shakespear.
However, with that being said, the made-up words providied by Dr. Suess is actually very useful. It helps kids learn phonetics, or how to pronounce a word they have never seen before, as it does not exist. Most people actually don't read the word, they read the symbol that their brain has made the word into.
wch is wy yu cn red ths.
dorothyhr (Dorothy Hoyt-Reed) says…
Is this the porn that that guy in Olathe is trying to keep the kindergarten teachers from showing?
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Well, the green eggs obviously point to the breast, while the ham refers to the male genitals. And as we all know, this makes it blatantly pornographic.
crazyks (anonymous) says…
You must have lots of fun at Christmas, hanging your balls and icicles on the tree.