So much more than just feet!

For the longest time I considered this just another in the long line of silly Dr. Seuss books. It was only recently while reading to my daughter that I realized how helpful this book had been. This book was responsible for my daughter learning a whole lot more than just her right side from her left side before she was 5.

This is one of the Bright and Early books for beginning beginners . The words are very simple and repeated over and over again to help build a sense of confidence in not only sounding them out but also in future word recognition. The ‘chorus’ of the book is

Left foot. Right foot. Feet. Feet. Feet. Oh, how many feet you meet!

Children learn early to put the correct shoe on the correct foot, although sometimes they can still get them wrong even years later. But a lot of the time they aren’t taught that one shoe is the right shoe and one shoe is the left shoe. Sometimes parents will write an ‘R’ or an ‘L’ on the back of the shoe and the child learns which foot it goes on but they don’t really know why. Sometimes it isn’t until they enter school that they learn the difference between their right and their left.

When we first started reading this book we spent considerable time talking about ‘left’ and ‘right’. I’ll bet that I had read this book at least 5 times before I actually noticed that the words ‘left foot’ and ‘right foot’ were actually under the correct foot! How could I have been so dense to miss that! After that I started looking more closely at this ‘simple’ book and I was amazed at the variety of things I could teach my daughter about.

Foot versus Feet. It’s never too early to talk about singular and plural word formats.

Feet in the morning versus Feet at night. We talked about the rotation of the Earth and how our planet rotates around the sun while the moon rotates around the Earth. I explained the daily rotation cycle using 3 of her dollies and she got it! Suddenly instead of just Mr. Sun and Mrs. Moon she was saying that since it was day on our side of the world it must be night on the other side. Not bad for a 4 year old!

Low feet versus High feet. We talked about height and altitude and how it is related to the measurement of an object above sea level. Relating this back to the moon we talked about low and high tides and how they are influenced by the gravitational pull of the moon.

Front feet versus Back feet. Most children already know their front side from their back but it still never hurts to review this.

Slow feet versus Quick feet. Although the slow character doesn’t look much like one, I compared it to a sloth and explained how slowly a sloth moves while hanging beneath a tree limb. I did this by lying on her lower bunk and reaching my hands and feet up to the upper bunk and while talking r-e-a-l-l-y slowly moved my hands and feet. By comparison, I ran around her room in quick circles like the quick footed rabbit from the book. I did this several times and we both laughed and giggled but she got it.

Up feet versus Down feet. Children love big words so when I told her that ‘up’ was just a baby word for ‘ascending’ and ‘down’ was just a baby word for ‘descending’ she felt like a grown up.

Small feet versus Big feet. Most children also know the difference between small and big. But do they understand how hurtful it might be to say “You have big feet!” I used this as a lesson in kindness and thinking about others feelings.

His feet versus Her feet. This is useful for beginning to explain the differences between boys and girls, men and women, male and female.

‘Up in the air feet’ combined with ‘wet feet’ is a great lead in for you to explain the 3 forms of matter: gas, liquid and solid. Steam rising from food, a glass of water and an ice cube are great examples. (Naturally be cautious around the steam with the littler ones to be sure they don’t touch anything too hot.)

24 feet. On this page, Dr. Seuss has three similar creatures but each one has a different number of feet. The first has 6, the second 8 and the third 10. Not only does this allow for 3 different counting exercises by themselves but it also is a great introductory lesson in mathematics. 6 + 8 + 10 = 24. 6 + 8 = 14. 6 + 10 = 16. You get the idea…

It’s amazing to me how much learning Dr. Seuss packed into less than 30 pages!

This book is often sent free by the Grolier Book Club if you will consider joining. You can also usually pick it up at a yard sale for a quarter or something close. As a last resort look for it at your local library. We had 4 copies of this and gave it to relatives to explore with their own children.

Never miss an opportunity to teach your children. They do not need ‘See spot run’. They can handle so much more and they thrive on knowledge. Please take a few minutes a day and give it to them.

Thanks for reading!