I have to be honest and say that Groundhog Day is probably my least favorite holiday and so I never really know what to do with the students. This year though I tried to find better activities to do with the students related to Groundhog Day.
So to being with the day we read the Scholastic Let’s Find Out Groundhog article and watched the videos they provided online with the article.
After getting them more excited about Groundhog Day, we made our groundhog craft step by step together to try and make sure that all of the students knew what to do. I also really liked that at the end some of the students made bow ties or hair bows to put on their groundhogs and that really helped to make them different from each other.
Finally it was time to make our predictions, and students came up and placed their groundhog on one side or the other. The majority of my students really wanted spring to come early which really surprised me because we have gotten very little snow.
You can also spot the one student that didn’t follow the directions while making the groundhog.
Next we read Groundhog Day by Betsy
Lewin which is one of only three books that I have about groundhog day.
Though good news for next year, I received $10 to spend at scholastic from a parent order and I used it all to purchase three new groundhog day books. I can’t wait to get them and to read them next year.
Next I wanted the students to learn more about groundhogs and so we read an old article from Scholastic Let’s Find Out learning about baby groundhogs. We also watched a very informative video on youtube about groundhogs that you can see here.
After reading the article and watching the video we discussed and wrote down the new information that we learned about groundhogs. The students really enjoyed watching the video and learning new information about groundhogs. Before I knew it, it was time for us to get ready for lunch and recess.
Once lunch and recess was over we came back inside and my second groundhog book called Who Will See There Shadow This Year? by. After reading the book we quickly discussed what happened in the book because the students were anxious to watch the video and find out what the groundhog saw or not saw.
Then the students wrote what they are going to do now that they groundhog says there is going to be six more weeks of winter. The all of the students shared what they are going to do now with six more weeks of winter. Below is what some of the students wrote.
To wrap up Groundhog Day we read my third and last groundhog day book called Gregory’s Shadow by Don Freemen. I find this story to be really cute and both years the students have enjoyed the book and they actually voted this book as their favorite out of the three groundhog books.
And that is what I did this school year on Groundhog Day and I felt that it went really well and I forgot to say that when we were making the groundhog craft a student said to me that he really enjoys when we make crafts. That made me feel so good even though it was just a simple craft that we were making, but that one comment just really made me as a teacher feel good.
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