McElligot's Pool Activities

Find a fun activities and vocabulary lessons and puzzles to go with the great Dr. Seuss classic "McElligot's Pool". Below you will find lesson ideas, vocabulary, some puzzles and more.

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• Aquatic Environments Grades Various
  The initial setting of this story is a pond. Throughout the book, a number of additional aquatic environments are introduced. This makes the book an excellent resource to launch a study on various aquatic elements. Here are some possible topics:
  • Where does your water come from? Research your local water supply.
  • Research the water cycle.
  • Research the difference between salt & fresh water environments.
  • Research various salt & fresh water creatures.
  • Research various aquatic ecosystems: rivers, ponds, tropical ocean, Arctic oceans, etc.
  • Have students create their own artwork/drawings of the creatures from the book.
  • Examine various “play on words” aquatic creatures: sea horse, hammerhead, etc.
  • Using a large wall/online map to locate and mark all of the various locations mentioned in the book.

• Story Vocabulary Grades Various
  Rhyming vocabulary words from McElligot's Pool. Click to download, then print and use them in a variety of ways (or you can download just the list of all the McElligot's Pool vocab words).
  
  Here are a few ideas:
  • Provide a collection of the words and have students write their own story or poem.
  • Match the rhyming words
  • Sort/match synonyms and antonyms
  • Sort by nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
  • Sort by long vowel sounds
  • Sort by short vowel sounds
  • Sort by the base word – what has been added or what can be added to them (-ing,- ed, etc.)
  • Sort by tenses
  • Sort the nonsense words
• Vocabulary Puzzles Grades Various
  
  
  Using the words in the vocab McElligot's Pool printables above, we created a word list for our puzzle makers. You can very quickly make a McElligot's Pool Word Search or McElligot's Pool Word Scramble. Make a puzzle in seconds by sliding down and clicking the generate button, or make these more fun by adding your own words (i.e. student or teacher names).

Return to the Read Across America index for more great Dr. Seuss activities.

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