It's SO much fun to incorporate the holidays into the classroom whenever possible, but of course, it's also important to ensure you are teaching the standards. Here are some fun activities you can do on (and the week of) Groundhog Day, February 2nd, that will integrate the holiday into your content areas!
Start off the day with an explanation of Groundhog Day. You can grab the free passage below which explains where the day originated in a simple way, and it has a vocabulary/context clue question, a genre question, and two questions where students must apply the text (use evidence) to draw the situations.
Click above or click here to download!
Of course, the last two questions will also lend to a great science mini-lesson on light and shadows! Have students take turns practicing being the Sun (hold a flashlight) and being a groundhog (sit on the floor for better position of the light above them). Which way does the groundhog need to come out of its burrow to NOT see its shadow? (Facing the sun or with the sun directly overhead!)
You can integrate a quick graphing lesson by having students take a tally of their peers, then graph results- will the groundhog see his shadow? Do you want a longer winter or early spring?
Next up, share a fun (and INFORMATIVE) mentor text with students to get some ELA skills in, too!
Click here or on the book above to purchase the book using my affiliate link on Amazon. The few cents I make from purchases add up to fund awesome giveaways!
Groundhog Gets a Say is a very entertaining nonfiction text. Students love it because the creatures in the book have funny, sarcastic comments (in speech bubbles) to say about each other. I love using this book because it teaches students all about marmots (I've even learned a thing or two from the text!) and also is written in a persuasive way! We know that writing genre is always tricky!
If you'd like to get print-and-teach activities for this mentor text, you can get it here from Ideas by Jivey's TpT store. It includes a tally page, fact-recording sheet, turning facts into opinions activity, a brainstorm page to use for opinion writing about another animal, and a quotation marks and tags practice page.
Happy Groundhog Day!!
