Craftivity For "Who Will See Their Shadow?" Story

1-2-3 Come Do Some Groundhog Day Activities With Me

Do you read ”Who Will See Their Shadow This Year?” by Jerry Pallotta?
It’s one of my students’ favorite Groundhog Day stories and perfect for practicing the “sequencing and retelling a story” standards.

With that in mind, I designed this quick, easy and fun ”Who Will See Their Shadow?” “slider” craftivity, which will help your students retell the story in chronological order.

The gist: A variety of animals are sick of winter and anxious for spring. Since the groundhog is sleeping, they wonder if they can make it come sooner by seeing their shadows.

Each one takes a turn, causing all kinds of weather from a hurricane to a tornado, which makes this a great story to review all kinds of weather with your kiddos as well.

There are 3 outside slider options to choose from. Pick your favorite or give children a choice.

There are also 2 slider strip options: one with just the animal graphics, and the other with the animals and their weather word.

For example, when the chicken saw her shadow it rained; when the polar bear saw his shadow there was a blizzard.

Students color the animals on the “slider strip” then cut and glue it together.

As they pull on the end of the “slider-strip” the various animal characters go through the “window”, so that children can take turns retelling the story to a partner or reading buddy, then take their craftivity home to share with their family, once again practicing these standards.

Even if you don't have time for everyone to make a slider, make one for yourself, as it's a great tool for reviewing a story.

I introduce the lesson by reading the book ”Who Will See Their Shadow?”, then share my completed "slider craft” with my students.

So that you can quickly, and easily make an example, I’ve included full-color patterns.

After I read the story, we retell the tale together, using the picture prompts on my slider.
I have them guess which animal character they think comes next, before I pull the picture through the “window”.

My students now know what’s expected of them, and are very excited to transition to making a “Shadow” storytelling slider of their own.

Storytelling sliders are also an easy & interesting way to assess comprehension.

I’ve included a “Let’s sequence the story” activity for this, where students color and trim the picture “windows” then glue them in the correct order on their worksheet.

There’s also a, “Here’s What Happened…” writing prompt worksheet, (BW & color) as another way to check comprehension, plus practice sequential writing, hopefully using a variety of ordinal numbers and other transitions.

Today's featured FREEBIE also has a Groundhog theme.

Click the link for the quick, easy & fun "Fickle Phil" Groundhog Day lunch bag craft.

Well that's it for now. Thanks for stopping by. I hear the snowplows zipping up and down the roads, sure wouldn't want that "way too early" morning job.