Green Eggs and Ham: A Mini Unit Study with Lesson Plans for Homeschool

Hello!

Welcome to our miniature unit study on Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. This is one of my son's favorite books, and in reading and discussing it, we found a lot to learn. Some of the activities below can be carried out with one child, but some require a group of at least two! We hope you have fun with your friends!

The one activity we did that I didn't write up in a box below was actually eating green eggs and ham. We found that the younger the child, the more likely that child was to try what the older kids thought looked suspiciously like boogers. Well! Just goes to show they're not keen on eating boogers, which is naturally a relief. To make green eggs and ham, add green food coloring to eggs and ham. Now aren't you glad I explained that?

Thanks to my friend Veronica who contributed to this lesson plan!

There are so many rhymes in Green Eggs and Ham! We can have fun with rhymes too, using only a big, bouncy ball and our extensive vocabularies:
1. The game starts with one child holding the ball and choosing a word to start the volley of rhymes. Benny might say, "Words with short 'i' that rhyme with hit."
2. He then bounces the ball to Zoe and shouts the first rhyme. Zoe bounces it back and shouts the next rhyme, etc.
3. The object is to cooperate to think of as many rhymes as possible. The initiator's challenge is to find a word that will make the most rhymes.

1. Write each word in the book on an index card. Have the children administer their own spelling tests (to each other) by pulling cards out of a bag. Read the word to your friend, he/she writes it down as the next word on his/her test, then he/she reads a word to you.

2. Make a list of all the foods you like. Make a list of all the foods you don't like.

Green Eggs and Ham is written totally in dialogue. A dialogue is a conversation between two people where one talks, then the other talks, then the first one talks, and the continue to take turns talking to each other.

1. Let's have a conversation: Have a dialogue with your mother and try to sustain taking turns in the conversation for as long as possible.

2. When writers write dialogue for movies, they use the person's name and a colon to say who's talking. Write a dialogue between Zoe and Benny where one is trying to get the other one to try a new food.

3. Each child choose one puppet. Now act out a "dialogue" between the puppets in the following situations: One wants the other to try a new food. One wants to play outside and the other one wants to play inside. They discuss their favorite things to eat. Remember to take turns talking. If you can't think of anything to say, try asking a question!

1. Make a new page to the book to show Sam-I-Am trying to get his friend to eat green eggs and ham in a new place. You could choose "in the libarary" or "with a mongoose" or "under a bridge" or whatever you like.

2. Use a green marker to draw a picture of green eggs and ham and use as a placemat.

3. Paint "I am Zoe / Zoe I am" and "I am Benny / Benny I am" signs for rushing through rooms with.

Why do you think the eggs and ham are green? What makes them green?

If you were Sam's friend, would you try the green eggs and ham?

What's another place that Sam could have tried to feed his friend green eggs and ham?

What place in the book do you think is a good place to eat food?

Why do you think Sam wanted his friend to try the green eggs and ham so much?

Why do you think Sam's friend didn't want to try them?

Do you know anyone named Sam?

Can you think of a food that you don't like to eat?

Do you think that green eggs and ham would taste different in different places, or would they taste the same?
(If same) why would Sam ask his friend to try them in different places?

1. What Floats?

Put ten objects in a shoebox. Make a two-column chart on which the children can write down their predictions. We used a piece of wood, a candle, a toy boat, a toy truck, a full bottle, an empty bottle, a sponge, and a shell. And two other things I can't remember at the moment. :) :) Get a big bowl of water and have the kids sit on each side of it. Before you test each object, write the name in column one and "yes" or "no" in column two, to predict if it will float. Talk about how buoyancy depends on an object's displacing enough water sp that the water it displaces weighs more than it does. Then test it!

2. Why do trains run on tracks?

Play with your trains. Talk about that very old book, "Tootle" and ask the children why trains aren't allowed to run off the tracks and go wherever they like. Next time you're at a railroad crossing, talk about the train tracks and ask why the tracks are there to keep the trains going one way. Use your tracks to send your trains where you want them to go in your house.

1. States of matter.

Make green kool-aid so that each kid has a bowl of it. Talk about liquids and have the kids name some other liquids they know, like milk, water, juice, etc. Then talk about solids and gasses. It's good to talk about gasses when there's air coming out of a vent so that they can feel the invisible gas on their hands and faces. Ask a series of questions about different objects around the house until they've got the idea of solid, liquid and gas.

Talk about how they can change a liquid into a gas or a solid, and ask how they might do that. They need to change the temperature of the kool-aid, either exciting the molecules with heat so that they jump around and jump out of the liquid into vapor, or by calming them down with cold so that they lie down and make a crystal. So, put some of the kool-aid in a pot on the stove and some in a clear plastic cup in the freezer. When the pot starts to boil, you'll be able to see the water becoming a vapor right before your eyes! WOW! You can boil it all away if you want. And of course in the freezer the water will turn to ice.

2. Chemical change.

The water in the first experiment went through physical changes -- between different states of matter. Ask the children to predict what will happen to the liquid in a raw egg if you boil it on the stove. Of course, they know that it turns into a solid so you can eat it! But this isn't what you might think, given the first experiment we did. The difference is that the eggs go through a chemical change, catalyzed by the heat, and actually change into a different chemical composition, which is solid. Read more on coagulation below.

Coagulation is the change in state from a solution (ie having the characteristics of a liquid) to a gel (ie having the characteristics of a solid). This occurs in liquid foods which contain proteins because the shape of the globular polypeptide molecules change when the liquid is heated. The energy supplied to the molecules by the heat causes the bonds which link different parts of the chain to break, resulting in a change in the protein structure. Because the protein changes from its state in nature, this process is called denaturation. Other bonds then form as a second process called coagulation occurs - the protein eventually becomes a three-dimensional network of molecules within which water is trapped. At this stage the food has solid characteristics: it has coagulated.

Egg white begins to thicken at about 144 degrees F, it ceases to flow at 149 degrees F, and it becomes fairly firm at 158 degrees. Meanwhile, a yolk will begin to thicken at 149 degrees and lose its fluidity at 158 degrees. So to cook an entire egg to a non-runny-sunny-side-up condition, you'd want both the white and the yolk to reach 158 degress and to stay there long enough for the rather slow coagulation reactions to take place.

Heating a liquid so it changes states -- from liquid to gaseous -- isn't at all related to what happens to eggs when they cook. Eggs undergo a chemical reaction, ie their molecules interact and change due to the heat. A change in state is not a chemical change -- the molecules are still the same molecules, they just have more or less space between them. Ice is H2O and water is H2O and steam is H2O. But if you examine eggs before and after cooking, you will find a different molecular structure.