Yertle the Turtle Stacking Blocks

Yertle the Turtle is the story of a turtle king, who wanted to rule all that he could see. He ordered all of the turtles in his kingdom to stack themselves up, so that he could see more and more and therefor rule (so he thought) more and more.

This book has been a favorite of ours this past week. The kids have been in love with turtles lately, so this seemed like a logical story to include in our Dr. Seuss week. They also have both been very interested in counting, and stacking things up. Wouldn't it be grand if we could combine all of these interests into one activity?

Find a few boxes of varying shapes and sizes. You want the basic shape to be rectangular, but it was fun to have different dimensions of rectangles to stack. Wrap each box in green construction paper or wrapping paper. I ran out of green paper, and Jonah pointed out that the turtles in the book are actually a blueish purple color, so I started using blue and purple paper as well. The color variety was a lot of fun!!!

I suggest covering the boxes with a top layer of clear contact paper. This protects them from drool, chewing, sneezing, ripping, and wearing down quickly.

Cut turtle heads, feet, and fins from construction paper and fasten them to the bodies with tape or glue. You can laminate these and then glue them on for extra strength as well. Add googly eyes if desired. (I liked the eyes, but Evelyn was insistent on picking them off. she even snuck up to our playroom during naptime, picked the turtle eyes off, and came back downstairs to give them all to me!)

Let the counting and stacking and knocking over begin!!! I made six turtles, because that was all I had the energy and time for. I am hoping to continue to add new turtles to our stack as time goes on!