February 2nd is Groundhog Day, ya’ll!
I love using a holiday theme in my therapy sessions. Kids just don’t know the facts behind the traditions we celebrate and I think it’s fun to teach them those little things.
This time I did the learning!!
I learned so much when I did the research to make this activity.
For instance, I learned that Groundhog day is way cool and Punxsutawney Phil is livin’ the good life!
So when Groundhog day comes, I WILL BE READY!
Well, actually I’ll be doing this the week before Groundhog Day since it falls on a Saturday. (bummer)
Well, actually I’ll be doing this the week before Groundhog Day since it falls on a Saturday. (bummer)
I made this cute reading and responding activity with lots of non-fiction text allllll about Groundhog Day.
I would guess that the text varies between 3rd and 5th grade reading level. For my little ones who can’t read these, I plan to read them aloud and turn this into a
listening and responding activity.
listening and responding activity.
Here’s a peek…..
Some of my students act like I’m absolutely TORTURING them when I make them read
(uh excuse me, we are at school; reading is kind of a given)
so I turned the reading passages into a game to give a little incentive.
I made sure my 22 passages covered allllll the skills we’ve been learning:
inferencing, comparing, giving opinions, making personal connections,
making predictions, describing, defining vocabulary in context.
Oh you know, all the usuals that our kiddos struggle with so very much.
I threw in a writing prompt for a little writing practice.
My kids need so much help to get their little words on paper.
When they can do it, it makes me so happy!!
And if the card game isn’t enough, I threw it a good ole board game to rev up the motivation.
Who can resist these little guys?
Groundhogs might be my new favorite animal.
(don’t tell my pup, Lola.)
If you feel like joining me on the Groundhog Day bandwagon, I’ve already done your lesson planning for ya. You can grab it RIGHT HERE
Just print it out and do your thing!
I’ve also been trying out my new Groundhog day Quick Drill game!
Read about “Speedy Speech” or “Quick Artic/Quick drill” HERE, and if you want to,
grab the little game HERE.
Looking forward to a great Friday!!
Hope you have a good one, too!
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UPDATE:
The EET is my jam, and I’ve been using it to help my 4th and 5th grade students witht their writing. It’s really helped them organize their paragraphs. Check out the writing we did together on Groundhog Day. If you’re familiar with the EET, you’ll see that the topic sentence is “green group,” the third sentence is “blue do.” Halfway through the paragraph, you’ll spot “What do they look like,” “pink parts,” and “white where.” Then of course they added what else they knew about Phil from the passages they read. I love using EET this way, and our Groundhog Day paragraph turned out pretty good! Try it!
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