The Lorax discussion

The rhyming in The Lorax makes the story fun and memorable. It has an important and topical message about saving the trees and looking after nature that could fit into PSHE or geography. Children may know the film so will have a good idea of the storyline already but could draw comparisons between the film and the book. The scene is set with interesting, sometimes nonsensical, vocabulary and the characters are unusual. The setting is interesting because it is based on real life but tweaked to be more colourful and exciting. This could be good inspiration for children to take another real life setting and make it into an imaginary Dr Seuss style world. The story raises questions about large organisations and people in power and the importance of them following ethical guidelines to protect the environment. Children could have a guided discussion about where they see people disregarding and ruining nature for their own profit, or for the profit of humans. It could open up a whole project on humans’ gain vs the environment. The story would be great for guided reading in KS1 or for more independent reading and wider discussion in KS2. Upper KS2 could use the story as inspiration to create rhyming stories based around current environmental issues for younger children.