GROUNDHUG DAY activities and lesson plan ideas

The picture book Groundhug Day is a wonderful February read aloud for Groundhogs Day.

Moose was having a party for Valentine’s Day and wanted all of his friends to be there. Bunny, Porcupine and Squirrel were ready but Groundhog was not. The friends realized it was almost Groundhog’s Day and if Groundhog saw his shadow he would not be at the party. Bunny, Porcupine, Moose and Squirrel spent the night arguing about how they could stop Groundhog from seeing his shadow.

When the sun came up they were still arguing and Groundhog started to come out of his hole. When Groundhog saw his shadow, he immediately went back inside. That’s when his friends realized he was afraid of shadows. Moose, Bunny, Porcupine and Squirrel started telling Groundhog about all the fun things they could do with shadows. Groundhog thought it sounded fun so he came out of his hole. The friends spent the day playing with shadows but at the end of the day Groundhog still wanted to go into his hole. He explained to his friends that it was too cold outside his hole. He wouldn’t be at the Valentine’s Party so the friends exchanged hugs instead.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️READING STRATEGIES

☐ making predictions

☐ summarize / retell

☐ making connections

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ cause and effect

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ managing stress and anxiety

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ nouns

☐ pronouns

☐ irregular verbs

☐ homophones

☐ proper nouns

☐ plural nouns

☐ contractions

☐ quotation marks

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables