February 2, Groundhog Day, and I had plans.  Not just plans, but Groundhog themed plans to work into a busy Wednesday at school.  A mix of science, art, language arts and just plain fun.  

To get a little head start, the children colored and cut out their groundhog puppets yesterday and made predicitons on whether the groundhog would see his shadow today.

This morning they made burrows, participated in a lesson on groundhog folklore, and named their groundhogs.   In order to bring the experience closer to home the plan was to let the children go outside, sing our Piggyback “Come Out Little Groundhog” song and have their own, trusty , paper pet groundhog predict the weather for the next six weeks, then come back to the classroom and write in their journals to record the event. 

Since it was rainy yesterday and cloudy this morning most predictions were for the groundhog to not see his or her shadow.  So we march outside with burrows and groundhogs in tow, set up, and sang our song.  Out popped the groundhogs out of their paper burrows and at that same split second so did the sun from behind the clouds. 

So, sorry to those of you in the nasty, cold, blizzard conditions but in the land of paper groundhogs and burrows there will be six more weeks of winter.