Celebrating Groundhog Day is a wonderful way for elementary teachers to engage our students in a day full of fun and learning activities. If you are looking for some easy to prep resources to add to your groundhog activities, we’ve got you covered!
Let’s begin with some high interest learning activities for science and reading! A great way to celebrate any holiday in the classroom is to incorporate the theme into your core subjects.
Groundhog Day Informational Text Activities:
This nonfiction reading activity provides students with facts and information about groundhogs. It’s the perfect way to integrate science with Groundhog Day fun by learning more about winter animal survival, animal behaviors, groundhog burrows and more! After reading closely and marking up the text, students are provided with a writing prompt and a drawing task.
The nonfiction reading resource, An Underground Home, is a passage meant to be read independently. After reading, the students create their own diagram of a burrow (like a cutaway). They will have to look back at the text to label their drawing to show rooms and tunnels. Second grade learners will LOVE this!
Groundhog Day Activity Packet:
In addition to the nonfiction close read activity, I use the printables in another Groundhog Day teaching resource. There’s a little bit of something for all subjects so it’s a very nice way to theme the day or week.
The packet includes groundhog specific vocabulary cards, graphic organizers, informational text passages, poetry, writing pages and a class graph that can be displayed on the board.
After writing and graphing, get creative with a cute groundhog craft that can be displayed on a bulletin board, hung from the celling or used as a shadow puppet on a popsicle stick.
Need a filler activity for those few moments of down time? Your class will have a blast with the…How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?… tongue twister too! That’s a favorite brain break and always good for a laugh!
See more of these groundhog day teaching resources {here}.
For more groundhog day fun, you can also download and print a FREE Groundhog Day word search from my TPT store. It’s perfect for morning work or to have ready to go for your fast finishers!
Groundhog Day Read Aloud:
Looking for a great read aloud that fits with your your groundhog theme? This story, The Night Before Groundhog Day by Natasha Wing is a fun rhyming book that you and your class will LOVE!
If you would like to add this book to your own February read aloud library, you can find it here on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3SxHTTN (Affiliate link)
Conclusion:
Make Groundhog Day a fun and educational experience for your elementary students with these engaging activities. Informative readings and fun read alouds, interactive class graphs and adorable crafts will help your classroom fill with excitement and learning on this special day. Enjoy celebrating Groundhog Day with your students!
Check out other great classroom ideas for the month of February, including Valentine’s Day and Dental Health Month:
https://creativelessoncafe.com/tag/february-ideas/
Happy teaching!
