Happy Groundhog Day!!

We have spent a lot of time learning about the Groundhog. We learned about animals that hibernate, migrate, burrow underground or live in caves. Today it all culminated in learning if the Groundhog saw his shadow. We follow Punxsutawney Phil, from Gobblers Knob, in Punxsutawney PA. Here is what he had to say...

"Greetings from Punxsutawney!
Phil Says Six More Weeks!
Phil's official forecast as read February 2nd, 2009 at sunrise at Gobbler's Knob:
Hear Ye Hear Ye Hear Ye
On Gobbler's Knob on this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2010, Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators awoke to the call of President Bill Deeley and greeted his handlers, John Griffiths and Ben Hughes.
After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed, "If you want to know next, you must read my text. As the sky shines bright above me, my shadow I see beside me. So six more weeks of winter it will be.""

If you want to see his website go here...

Now, if Phil had been here in NC he definitely WOULD NOT have seen his shadow!! So, we decided as a class, we are not sure what will happen here in NC. We are hoping that Spring will come soon... that is our consensus.

These are the books we have been reading... we love the story about Mrs. Conner's class (who renamed Miss Michelle's Class and renamed all the kids to our names... laughs were had by all!)

We began work on our Groundhog book. It was a little more work than I had wanted to do in one day. Our Snow Day yesterday cut out some work time that we would have spent doing our book, we had to fit it in all today.

Here is our finished book... it has a Weather Puppet that goes in the back and you can switch it to a sunny day or cloudy day. We choose cloudy. Then there is a little Groundhog attached to a string that you manipulate while reading the book.

He can stand beside a tree, under a bush, behind a rock, or in a hole. It is a very cute book, a little more Teacher Directed and Product over Process, but it was fun. They had fun reading and moving the little Groundhog around.

We brought some snow in from outside today for our sensory table. It was cold. The kids predicted it wouldn't last until lunch time... they were right. They had fun while it lasted and now it is a water table.

We added some plastic and metal (to see what got colder faster... metal). Plus, we added some vehicles, since we will be learning about them tomorrow.

Here is all our snow!!! Yup, they closed school again today because of all that snow :)


At Circle Time we introduced the Letter Oo, the Number 9 and the Month of February. Tomorrow we will begin our unit on Construction/Transportation. I will include Valentines Day, Dental Health, & President's Day in there too!!!