If you do a quick search on Pinterest, you’ll find many different Groundhog Day activities. These lesson plans are filled with activities, crafts, and snacks to use in your classroom or at home to celebrate this fun day. Many of these lesson plans require a large block of time to prepare and teach, which we don’t always have as teachers.
Today, I want to share a simple lesson plan that I use on Groundhog Day to teach several skills across subjects.. You can use this lesson plan to cover skills in math, reading, writing, social studies, and science. That’s a lot of teaching potential for one lesson with minimal prep and time commitment. (This is especially true if you download my Groundhog Day lesson plan where I’ve provided all of the materials you’ll need to teach a variety of skills.)
The History of Groundhog Day
Depending on the grade, many students will be familiar with the basics of Groundhog Day. Some grades may need a little more information than others though. This is why it’s great to start the lesson with a brief history or information on the holiday. Again, grade level will depict how in depth you go with the history of the holiday.
Groundhog Day has been celebrated since 1887 when a local newspaper editor in Punxsutawney, PA came up with the idea. The first groundhog saw his shadow and “predicted” 6 more weeks of winter. Since then, it has become a yearly tradition to see if the official groundhog sees his shadow on February 2.
Selecting a Book for Your Groundhog Day Activities
A great way to introduce Groundhog Day and the history behind it is to select a book to read aloud to your class. Books are a great way to convey information through text and pictures with our students. A read aloud also provides the opportunity to practice literacy skills such as identifying parts of a text and other reading skills that you are currently practicing.
My personal favorite book to read for this holiday is Groundhog Gets a Say. This book features a proud groundhog that wants the world to know more about him. It follows the groundhog as he shares with the world that he’s more than just a furry animal making predictions. This book can be used as a jumping off point for talking about groundhogs and what makes them unique as animals. It’s also a great opportunity to talk about individual skills and how everyone is unique.
Making Predictions and Graphing Them
Once students are familiar with Groundhog Day and what happens in Philadelphia on this day, it’s time to make predictions of their own. In my Groundhog Day lesson plan, I have provided the headers and groundhogs for this activity. Students can color their groundhog while they think about their predictions. Do they think the groundhog will see his shadow or not?
Place the headers at the top of chart paper and invite each student to place his/her groundhog under the appropriate prediction. As a class, you can make observations on the graph to compare the data. This is the perfect opportunity to bring in a little math to the lesson.
Writing About Predictions
After students have made their predictions and added their groundhog to the graph, it’s time to write about their predictions. My Groundhog Day lesson plan includes two different writing opportunities. For younger students or those needing a little extra assistance in writing, you can use the template that is prewritten for students. This will allow them to gain confidence in their writing since they have a template to follow.
For older students, you can use the blank page to have them generate a sentence of their own about the prediction. You can give them some examples to follow or you can allow them to come up with their own sentences. This is a great time to emphasize the phrases “I predict” and “I think” as sentence starters for prediction writing. When students are finished with their writing, there is a larger groundhog for them to color and display. You can add pipe cleaners or yarn to the whiskers for even more fun. Pom poms can be used for a fun nose and googly eyes are always a fun addition.
Putting It All Together
When students have finished their writing, you can use it to create a fun display in the classroom or hallway. Hang each groundhog with the writing pages for all to enjoy. After everyone has finished their writing, it’s a great time to see which students were right about the groundhog.
The groundhog makes his prediction around 7:20am EST every year. This means that you should be able to look up the ceremony to share with your students. This is a great time to wrap up the lesson by talking about predictions and when we can use them in our lives. Then, you can discuss how students feel about the groundhog’s prediction of whether or not we’ll have an early or late spring.
