Groundhog day

Using a blog as a tool to archive means that the activities that I post are sometimes a little behind the times.   Here we are almost to Valentine's Day and I'm posting about groundhogs!  If you're reading this blog for ideas in the classroom, here's some for next year ; )

I thought it would be great fun to celebrate groundhog day with some special centers.  Introducing the groundhog to preschoolers is a lot of fun.

Groundhog Puzzle (found on Pinterest, from here):

I copied the picture 2x onto card stock, left one whole and cut the other into pieces so my younger students could match the puzzle easily.  These would also be fun to make one for each child to take home.

Shadow Match: (this blog has an entire groundhog unit, complete with emergent reader books and this cute shadow match activity).  For the matching cards, I glued the printed paper onto black construction paper, cut them out and covered with contact paper.  I placed them on a tray with felt underneath to help the cards to not slide around so easily.

Groundhog Magnet Page: 

(makinglearningfun.com has all sorts of magnet pages and MUCH more)

I slipped the sheet into a page protector and placed it on a cookie sheet.  My magnets were a little big for the circles on the page, but this was the first time my students had seen an activity like this so they were interested in  checking it out.

Groundhog Puppet:  (also a Pinterest find, from here)  

I printed the groundhog picture onto card stock.  I gave the kiddos all the tools they needed to put the puppet together.  They colored and cut out the groundhog then taped a craft stick to the back (glue takes too long to dry!). 

To cut cost, instead of using a green cup, I cut out strips of green construction paper and stapled them into tubes.  The students trimmed the top of the tube to make it look like grass, then poked their groundhog through the tube.  

I'm sorry I didn't get a finished shot, but my kids were running around with their groundhogs looking for their shadow.  The question is,  did the groundhog see his shadow?  Hmmmm...

Miss Eileen