GROUNDHOG WEATHER SCHOOL activities and lesson plan ideas
These GROUNDHOG WEATHER SCHOOL Activities for the Groundhog Day picture book and Interactive Read Aloud Resource Book Companion Packet include lesson plans, reading comprehension questions, vocabulary, grammar, phonics, writing and word study activities with both printable and digital student pages.
Following an interactive read aloud of the picture book, GROUNDHOG WEATHER SCHOOL by JOAN HOLUB, choose from the included collection of either printable activities or go paperless and use the digital activities to practice standards-based skills. We've even included editable teaching slides themed to match the book!
THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:
◼️READING STRATEGIES
☐ ANALYZING ILLUSTRATIONS
☐ SUMMARIZING
☐ AUTHOR'S PURPOSE
◼️GRAMMAR
☐ ADJECTIVES
☐ CONTRACTIONS
☐ PROPER NOUNS
◼️SEL
☐ PROBLEM-SOLVING
☐ GROWTH MINDSET
SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:
The book Groundhog Weather School by Joan Holub is an entertaining story full of facts about groundhogs and the weather. On Groundhog Day, the Weather Groundhog predicts that spring is here, but gets that prediction wrong. Rabbit writes him a letter asking him to have more help next year when he predicts the weather.
The Weather Groundhog starts Groundhog Weather School and teaches other groundhogs how to predict the weather. In this story, readers learn many interesting facts about groundhogs and weather predictions, in a fun and engaging way.
The groundhogs take their final exam and are ready to predict the weather. When Groundhog Day comes again, they predict that there will be six more weeks of winter, but their prediction is wrong again.
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