Oh, the Places You’ll Go! has become our traditional graduation keepsake, but it’s great for any age. It’s an encouragement for life, beginning with “Congratulations! Today is your day” and ending with, “Kid, you’ll move mountains!” In between, the book alternates between the elation of, “Wherever you go, you’ll top all the rest!” and the realism of, “Except when you don’t. Because sometimes you won’t.”
Some low-prep ways to use this book in the classroom:
- Have young students use Feelings Puppets to show how the feeling of the book changes. Discuss how sometimes we have bad days, but then the next day can be a good day.
- Take the book literally, combining it with our Skylines Lesson Plans or Google Earth Writing Activity to explore places your students might go.
- Extend your classroom timeline into the future and have students identify plans for themselves, writing things like, “Jen went to the moon as an astronaut” and adding them to the timeline. Students could also make their own life timelines, choosing a goal and then working back through the education and experience required to reach that goal.
- We like to have older students choose a page to use as a writing prompt, relating the ideas about choosing your own direction, encountering Bang-ups and Hang-ups, and “Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you” to their own lives. Ask students to write a line from the book at the top of their papers, and then to write a reflective essay in response.
Online resources:
- We Are Teachers shares fun ideas.
- Teach with Me has a bucket list activity with a Cat in the Hat-style striped bucket.
- Seussville has fun graduation-related ideas.
- A free printable poster from A Night Owl
- Reading Is Fundamental has PDF download on Trying New Things.
Eureka has ready-made decorations.
Pencils add to the fun:
Ready to go over the top? This “stand-in” sets the tone and makes a perfect photo setting.
Road themed bulletin boards are great for this theme. TCR has one for behavior management that is especially appropriate:
This book is great with a travel or transportation classroom theme, too.!
