I figured what better way to tie a book in with Groundhog’s Day/Week than to read a book about  sleeping/hibernating!  So, I chose The Napping House!   We read the book today after taking a picture walk and then we took a look at the drama props that go with this story.  I also put the book and cassette in our Listening Center.

We also predicted whether or not we thought that the Groundhog would see his shadow…

I normally have the children color and cut out a small groundhog and then we pop him up through a slit on the correct side of the paper–but I couldn’t find my pattern, so we went with this instead and it worked out just as well, and left us room for tally marks (got to tie in math whenever you can right!!??)

We also read several Groundhog’s day books:

We also read “Gretchen Groundhog, It’s Your Day!”, but I couldn’t find it again to take a picture of it–wonder where I put it down?  I never did find it! 🙂

This is our pocket chart poem for the week:

We also made some cute little Groundhog paper bag puppets (the pattern came from and old CopyCat magazine–I miss those–do they have new ones?)

Last week (Friday) after our 12 inches of snow, I was talking with the children about the ratio of rain to snow and decided to do a little experiment to show them.  Each table had a small plastic tub and we filled it to the top with snow.  Here is mine:

We marked a line at the top where the snow started and then when it melted, we marked another line.  It was interesting to watch the snow melt–we had snow melting races!  On the far side of my room near the windows it’s 62 degrees on average, while on the other side of my room, it’s closer to 67.  So, I had this theory that the snow on the warmer side would melt faster and the other side slower.  I knew it would work, but I wanted to see how much longer the snow on the colder side would take, if we started with the same amounts.

We left the snow sitting for 2 hours and after returning from specials and our convocation, the snow on the warm side had melted totally, the middle of the room was about 2 minutes away from being totally melted and my container of snow that was sitting on the coldest side of the room, still had about another 45 minutes of melting to do.  It was very interesting and it affirmed for me that I’m not crazy for thinking one side of the room is colder than the other!  I just wish my desk were on the warmer side! 🙂

See you tomorrow!

Kristen 🙂