What are you doing for Groundhog Day?  You can start today by making this educational and interactive bulletin board.  Or make this a huge wall display in your hallway and get other students and passersby excited and involved.  Click on the link at the end of the list to print/view all of the Groundhog Day bulletin board templates.

On the left is a photo of a small construction paper placement picture I made, so you can get an idea of the way things are laid out. 

• Cut your caption out of die cut letters from an Ellison machine or type them out on your computer, cut them out and staple them across the top of your b. board.  
• A title can be: Will Phil See His Shadow?  Will The Groundhog See His Shadow?  _______________'s Class Counts Down to February 2nd. What's Your Guess? or whatever else you may come up with.  
• On the top of the bulletin board staple light blue paper for the sky, on the bottom attach light brown paper for the earth.
• Cut out a few hills of snow to scatter here and there. To make them sparkle, brush on some Elmer’s glue and apply to the edges.  Sprinkle with opalescent glitter.
• Using a darker shade of brown, make a large hill for a burrow.  Staple this to one side of your b. board.
• Add texture by ripping up some pieces of sand paper, or scrunching up various shades of tissue paper and stapling these to the burrow.
• Show the hole area by drawing it with a black magic marker, or cut an oval out of large construction paper.  
• Before stapling the burrow to the side of your bulletin board cut a slit in the top where the hole is, so that you can insert “Phil” on February 2^nd.

• Enlarge my drawing of Phil by using an overhead projector and trace him on another shade of brown paper.   You can add dimension by coloring him with markers or crayons, and adding a large wiggle eye.

• Print a copy of my “Do Not Disturb!” sign, mount it on construction paper, punch holes in each corner, and tie a piece of colorful yarn to each hole. Tack on to the front of the burrow with a thumbtack.
• Print off the Woodchuck Chatter Newspaper sheet and glue it to the back of the Do Not Disturb sign.  On February 2^nd flip over this sign.  Affix the yes or no answer to the empty box.
• Cut out a large white cloud and large yellow sun.  Place both of these in the sky, one in each corner.   You can add dimension to the sun using crepe paper streamers as rays.  You can add dimension to the cloud by having your students help you pull apart cotton balls and glue them to the cloud.  You can also scrunch up white tissue paper and staple that to the cloud.

• Run off copies of the groundhog prediction page.  Have your students TRACE then WRITE the sentence, make their prediction and then color their groundhog.  Make sure they sign their name at the top of their paper.

• If your b. board is in the hallway, make a copy of your class composite and have students glue their school photo next to their prediction.
• Mount students’ groundhogs on a variety of colored construction paper and staple them to the opposite side of your bulletin board of where you have your burrow.
• Print off my groundhog prediction graph and display that on your b.board as well.

• Tie a yarn loop to a plastic sheet protector, attach it to your bulletin board with a tack and hang it on the opposite end of the Do Not Disturb sign. Print off the Groundhog Day Countdown label and glue it to a piece of construction paper.  Cut it out and staple it above the countdown sheet protector. Print the Groundhog Countdown number pages, cut them out and glue them to construction paper, insert them inside the sheet protector from 10 to 0. Assign this as one of your daily jobs. Your students will have fun changing the numbers as they count down to February 2^nd.

• On February 2^nd insert the last number card in the countdown, flip over the Do Not Disturb sign, announce the news, affix the appropriate label, insert Phil and see how many of your students were correct. I think a big “Hooray!” for Phil is appropriate as well as for everyone who participated.
  

• This photo of Phil courtesy of the Punxsutawney Pennsylvania site's photo album.

• Follow the event up by clicking on the official site and watching what took place for the real Phil at  the official Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Website. You can also check out  the Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania site, Phil’s home.  They have an Interactive Fun section with a Groundhogese Translator, which allows children to type in a phrase and have it translated into the original “groundhog-speak”. Click on the audio and hear a rendering of Groundhogese! Other activities include Ask the Groundhog and Send a Post Card.

• 
• If you’d like a nice compare and contrast activity, check out a Canadian site and have your students compare our northern neighbors'  Wiarton Willie the groundhog from the town of South Bruce Peninsula in Canada with USA’s Pennsylvania’s Phil. You could use a Venn diagram for this activity.  Click on the link to print/view this groundhog comparison contrast Venn diagram activity. 
• 
  
• If you want to make the Groundhog Day bulletin board above, Click on the link to view/print all of the Groundhog Day bulletin board templates.

I hope you have a groundhog great time with these activities!

As always, I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com