Groundhogs, shadows, and shapes, Oh My!

Since we are celebrating Groundhog's Day today our story time theme this week was Shadows, although we featured the letter G for Groundhogs.  I was actually able to give a groundhog report to my group this morning.  In neighboring Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, thus predicting six more weeks of winter.  However, here in the Buckeye State, Buckeye Chuck did not see his shadow and is predicting an early spring.  Give the mild winter we have already had, my bets are that we are experiencing an early spring to be followed by six weeks of winter :)

Anyway, our first shadow book was an illustrated version of Robert Louis Stevenson's My shadow.  I used the version that was illustrated by Penny Dale.  It has lovely illustrations of the boy and his shadow, showing them as they play and how the shadow changes.  It is great for introducing Groundhog's Day to the littler ones as most of them know what a shadow is and we can use the book to talk about how their shadows change, disappear, and are always connected to them.  This book did not go over well with my more wiggly Monday group, but the other groups seemed to enjoy it.

Our second book really had little to do with shadows, but It looked like spilt milk by Charles G. Shaw has lots of shadowy-ish shapes.  This book is always fun in story time because the kids like to guess what each shape is.  Most were easy for them, but there were a few challenging ones.  The great horned owl gave them all trouble, but one boy guessed a crow and another guessed a rocket ship - I liked the rocket ship.  The angel was also difficult.  A few guessed a butterfly which was also a very good guess.  I got them to see the angel by talking about making snow angels.

 For our last story I made up my own.  Groundhog books appropriate for preschoolers are hard to find so I created a flannel story called Groundhog's Shadow.  You can read all about how I made it here, along with the full version of the story.  Basically, little Groundhog is excited for his first Groundhog's Day and it warned by his mother that if he sees his shadow he needs to come back in and go to bed.  So, he pops up, but the shadow that he sees is not his.  So, he tries again (several more times in fact) until he sees his own shadow and then pops back down to sleep for six more weeks.

In addition to our books we also did a shadow activity.  I brought in an overhead projector and cut several different shapes from our dye cut machine.  They guessed what they were and then we all stood up to make our own shadows.  The kids waved to their shadow, had them jump, wiggle, and turn around before we told our shadows good-bye.

Our songs this week were just favorites of mine.  We sang Hap Palmer's Itsy bitsy spider.  This couples the traditional song with a second verse and adds in some spiders that crawl all over the kids.

Because I try to use scarves, bells, or shakers each week we got out the scarves for Johnette Downing's Shake your scarves.  This has simple motions to do with the scarves that the kids can easily follow along.

We ended story time with Tooty ta by Dr. Jean.  It had been awhile since I used this song, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.  It builds a new activity each verse and repeats all of them.  By the end you have your: thumbs up, elbows back, feet apart, knees together, bottoms up, tongue out, eyes shut, and you are turning around.  I have found that it is actually a decent thigh workout.  Younger kids had a little trouble in the middle, but most kept with it, especially when it came to sticking out their tongue.

 Our craft this week was super easy.  I gave all of the kids four dye-cut shapes along with popsicle sticks so that they could make puppets.  I showed them how they could take them home and use a flashlight to make their own shadow puppet story.  Some colored the puppets before taping on the stick.  

Flannel Friday: Groundhog's Shadow

Since next week is Groundhog's day I am planning a Shadow themed story time.  If you are not familiar with Groundhog's Day it is celebrated every year on Feb. 2nd in the US and Canada.  Those of us living in a cold, dreary climate watch to see if a groundhog - most notably Punxsutawney Phil of Pennsylvania - pops out of his hole to see his shadow.  If he sees his shadow he will be spooked back into his hole for another six weeks of winter.  If he does not see a shadow he will emerge from hibernation and winter will end in four weeks.

Anyway, I added it to the story time roster this winter.  The problem is that there are very few groundhog books that are appropriate for 2 and 3 year olds, so I generally modify the theme to shadows and shapes.  As part of the program I get out the overhead projector and put various shapes up to make shadows on the wall.  I have the kids guess what it is (they are generally whatever dye cuts we have, a duck, frog, heart, square, etc.)  They love this.  Once I have put up all the shapes I let the kids get up and dance around to make their own shadows on the wall.  Fun, fun, fun!  And then our craft is shapes that they glue onto popsicle sticks so that they can go home and make their own shadow puppets.  So easy to do and they always love it!

So, moving onto the Flannel Friday part of this, I decided that since books were lacking I would write my own groundhog story.  This was an easy one to do.  I made a groundhog out of craft foam and glued him to a paint stick.

I affixed some velcro to the stick and the back of the flannel board so that I could make the groundhog pop up and stick there while I put up his shadow.

I gave him a nice snowy hole, and hid him behind.

I may modify this a bit, I keep thinking it is a giant cupcake!  I was trying to go for a mound-ish look.

You can begin the story by explaining Groundhog's Day to the kids, making sure to note that if he sees his shadow he pops back down into his hole.  Then, the story goes:

Groundhog's day had finally arrive and little Groundhog was ready to pop out of his hold for the very first time.  The trouble was that he was afraid to pop put of his hole because EVERYTHING scared him.  His mother had told him that if he popped up and saw the shape of a groundhog he had to come back in and hurry back to bed.  So, little groundhog mustered his courage and stuck his little head out of the hole...

...Oh no!  Is that a groundhog? (Pause for the kids to reply, you can play this part up if you want.  My 3 year old is always asking for monster stories, so I called everything a monsterous ___)  Scared little groundhog dropped back into the hole.  It didn't look like a groundhog, maybe he should check again...

...Oh no!  Is that a groundhog? (Pause again...)  Little groundhog dropped back into his hole again.  That hadn't looked like a groundhog either, perhaps he should check again...

and again...

(I'm sure you get the picture here.  You can continue to have him pop up and down for as long as you want until...)


Little groundhog decided to try one last time.  He crouched down, got ready, and popped up as fast as he could and saw...

...a MONSTER!!!  Little groundhog was so scared he flew back down the hole and went back to bed - for another six weeks :)

Like I said, fairly simple.  You can make him see any weird shadows that you want.  If you have a dye-cut machine it makes things really easy.  I know that some libraries have an educator's center with some and I have also heard some Board of Education buildings have them for use if you do not already have one.  Cutting basic shapes would work too.  We are going to do this story along with the book It looked like spilt milk by Charles G. Shaw and an illustrated version of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem My shadow.

So, here's to hoping the groundhog does not see his shadow!  If you are looking for this week's round-up as well as past round-ups you can find them with Anne at SoTomorrow.  You can also click on the Flannel Friday button at the right to see all Flannel Friday posts visually arranged on Pinterest.