Groundhog Day - Interview with a Groundhog -- Just how accurate are their predictions? Get the scoop!

A chat with one of  America’s best known rodents!

February 2nd is rolling around again and the Groundhog is getting ready to wake up and give us his yearly prediction on how much longer winter will last!   But why do Americans look to a Groundhog for such a special message? We went to the best source to find out -- a groundhog!

WORDS TO KNOW: Forecast: To estimate something that will happen in the future. Hibernate: When an animal spends the winter in a sleeping state so that they can conserve their energy. Meteorologist: A scientist who studies the weather. Predict: To estimate something that will happen in the future. Prognosticate: To predict or forecast that an event will happen in the future. Rodent: A group of mammals that are known for chewing and have big incisors. The rodent group includes rats, mice, squirrels and hamsters.

Q: Hello Mr. Groundhog! May I call you Mr. Groundhog?

A: Of course!  Although we do answer to many other names including woodchuck, groundpig, monax, Canada marmot and even whistlepig.  We are called whistle pigs because we sometimes make a whistling sound to warn other groundhogs of danger.

Q:So, how did you get the job of yearly weather predictor? You have to admit that most of our other weather forecasters are humans, not groundhogs.

A: This is true, but groundhogs like myself have been predicting when spring will arrive for hundreds of years.  In fact, groundhogs first started predicting the weather in Europe.

Germans who immigrated to the United States brought their tradition of watching groundhog behavior with them.

And England has a poem that says that if the sun comes out on February 2nd, there will be six more weeks of winter.   

Q: Just how do you predict whether we are going to get six more weeks of winter or an early spring?

A: It is quite simple!  I just walk outside of my burrow!  If it is a really sunny day, I will see my shadow and I will run back inside to hide.  That means we will all have six more weeks of winter.  If it is a cloudy day, I won’t see my shadow and I will stay outside.  This means that we will have an early spring!

Q: Why is Groundhog Day on February 2nd?

A: February 2nd is a perfect day to predict the change of seasons because it is the halfway point between the day winter starts on December 21st and the day that spring begins on March 20th.   

In fact, farmers from New England had a saying: “Groundhog day, half your hay!” meaning that you had better still have over half of your hay in the barn or you won’t have anything to feed your animals during the winter.

Q: You mentioned that there are other groundhogs like you that also predict when winter will come to an end?

A: I have many groundhog cousins around the country who predict the weather.  Our most famous cousin is a groundhog named
“Punxsutawney Phil” who predicts the weather in a small town in Pennsylvania.  The people of his town really celebrate Groundhog Day!  He even has an “Inner Circle” of humans who take care of him and dress up with top hats on  February 2nd.

Some of my other cousins are: Chattanooga Chuck in Tennessee, Jimmy the Groundhog in Wisconsin, Staten Island Charlotte (or sometimes Chuck) in New York and Nibbles in North Carolina.  

Q: If you don’t mind us asking, how often are your predictions correct?

A: It depends on who you ask.  I believe that I’m right 100% of the time!  The meteorologists with the United States government have a different way of figuring out whether the groundhog weather predictors get it right.  They compare our yearly forecast with whether the average temperatures for the months of February and March are above average or below average.   

Here’s a chart of what they thought of Punxsutawney Phil’s record for the last five years when they compare his forecast with the United States average temperatures.

	Shadow	Feb. Temp.	Mar. Temp	Correct
2016	No	Above	Above	Yes
2015	Yes	Below	Above	Mixed result
2014	Yes	Below	Below	Yes
2013	No	Above	Below	Mixed result
2012	Yes	Above	Above	No

Q: And what is it that you do on the other 364 days of the year? Is it true that you hibernate in the winter?

A: Why yes, we are known for taking a long sleep during the winter.  Some of my cousins who live in northern areas with colder winters are known for sleeping in their burrows from October to March.  My cousins who live in southern areas with warmer winters may hibernate for less than three months.   

Q: Can you tell us more about your burrow?

A: We woodchucks are excellent diggers!  We create a tunnels in the dirt where we can stay warm.  We often line these tunnels with dried leaves.  We also definitely make certain that there are at least two ways out of our burrows.  We don’t want to be caught without a way to escape from a predator!

Q: And what’s a typical meal like for you?

A: In the summer, I love to eat green grasses and plants.  As you can see, I love eating clover as well as dandelions.  I also have been known to eat nuts and even insects.  

Q: Thanks for talking to us and good luck on February 2nd!

A: You’re welcome!  And for further information, check out these Web sources!

“Groundhog Day History” (http://www.groundhog.org/about/history)

from Groundhog.org.  This site is the official one for Punxsutawney Phil’s fans.

Groundhog Day” (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/customer-support/education-resources/groundhog-day) from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).  

NOTE: I wrote this because my third grade son kept on asking me questions that I couldn't answer!  And there isn't really that much that is readable about Groundhog's Day on the Web.  The above links are the best two that I could find.  If you are a teacher or a parent who is homeschooling their family, I have a three-page activity worksheet that goes along with this groundhog interview.  It includes a cultural tie-in and even some science.  Take a look at it on my Teachers Pay Teachers Web store -- Interview with a Groundhog - Student Activity Worksheet

Salt to the Sea -- A Novel Study

Thirty-three years after the sinking of the Titanic, which claimed over 1,500 lives, came the loss of another passenger ship.  This one may have claimed over 9,000 lives.  Yet we never hear about this significant tragedy with its loss of life.

It was the Wilhelm Gustloff, which went down in the Baltic Sea on January 30, 1945.  On board were German soldiers as well as civilians who were escaping from the Soviet Army as they marched across Lithuania and East Prussia.  

Ruta Sepetys has created a novel that will bring this event out of relative obscurity.  It is called Salt to the Sea.  In this novel, there are four main characters and their stories are told together in alternating short chapters.  Joana is a Lithuanian woman who has been trained as a nurse.  She has a family connection to the characters in Sepetys other historical fiction story, which is called Between Shades of Gray.  Florian is East Prussian and has been working as a apprentice to the art conservator in Konigsberg and is carrying something in his pack that he will not let out of his sight.  Emilia is a young Polish girl with a secret of her own.  And Alfred is a German youth who has been drafted very late in the war to serve as a sailor in the Kriegsmarine. He dreams of glory that is unlikely to come his way.  

This is such an important and interesting book and it deserves to be studied and enjoyed.  So I've created a novel study that might help teachers and homeschoolers to work with this book.  

Salt to the Sea - A novel study has a lot of content, including: 

-- A character tracker that invites students to reflect upon the three different types of literary conflict and potentially write an essay sharing their findings, 

-- An information skills lesson that helps students to identify an author's purpose in publishing Web information, 

-- Discussion or essay questions

-- And a comprehension quiz,

It also has a Google Earth Tour Builder lesson that brings to life the journey of these four characters.  You can access this Tour Builder for free. 

And because it is so much easier to teach something when students have a something to help them orient their learning, I have created a FREE Google Doc lesson with a location chart as well as an answer key. Feel free to view, make a copy, and use. 

FREE Dr. Seuss BOOKMARKS

 

Last year my school's student council used some of their money to buy my library some Dr. Seuss bookmarks to hand out on his birthday.  They featured some illustrations from his books.  The idea, which came from my fifth and sixth graders, absolutely BOMBED.  The kids thought that they were too babyish.  Yet the kids still like the idea of honoring Dr. Seuss. 

So I made my own bookmarks this year and I've put a pdf of them up for FREE on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

Other free stuff I added to my store today includes eleven meaty "Hound of the Baskervilles" discussion questions that I used with a classic book club at my school.  

Enjoy! 

Who writes YOUR information? Getting students to quickly reflect on sources

In my library for the past two weeks we've been focusing on the mandatory 5th grade science fair, gearing up for our annual Japanese Internment history day where we invite members of our community to share their stories of the time of internment... and raising over 1,000 chum salmon in a tank.  I really love my job.

We've also been sneaking other research projects into the schedule whenever we can and this Jamestown themed information literacy idea grew out of my HUGE FRUSTRATION over trying to get students to spend time reflecting on who wrote their information.  They can talk the talk when I make suggestions about NOT using information written by other students but they actually don't walk the walk when they are out surfing the Web.

Now I don't want to make research more onerous but I would love to see students giving more attention to identifying the author behind their sources, without having to drag out a Web site evaluation rubric (OH! How I hate those!)

So here's my new thought.  It's an incentive chart.

I created a chart with markers that were themed for their Jamestown research project.  Before starting their research we quickly discussed the positives and drawbacks to certain types of information.  Students were then divided into teams.  Each team wrote their team's name next to one of the marker colors on the right.  As they researched their topics independently they identified the type of resource they used and dragged a marker over into the graph. 

At the end of the research session, we talked about which resources received the most users.
You can download my FREE SmartBoard Notebook slide that I used for Jamestown from my Teachers Pay Teachers store but I'm really trying to throw out the idea that we need to find quick and creative ways of giving students more of an incentive to reflect on who writes the information that they choose to use for a project.

Since I was uploading this Jamestown activity, I also uploaded the mini-novel study that I created a few years ago to help my teachers use three different Jamestown novels in their classroom. It focuses on the real historic character, Samuel Collier.  TWO authors used him as the basis for their historical fiction novels and their takes on his personality were very different.  This novel study is linked up at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

Wildwood Weekend -- Creating a Novel Study for Wildwood by Colin Meloy

This is the view from my backyard window and that tree in the middle is the one that swings wildly during strong storms.  We had a lot of weather this weekend and we chose  to just stay inside in the Pacific Northwest where we are, admittedly "snow wimps."  When I took this photo the rain was beginning to fall on the snow, creating this gorgeously atmospheric mistiness that reminded me of the cover of Snow Falling on Cedars.   

The weather made me really thrilled to have an amazing novel to focus on.  The book is Wildwood and it is by Colin Meloy, the lead singer and songwriter for the Decemberists, a Portland art rock band. It features two unlikely heroes, Prue and Curtis who follow Prue's infant brother into the Impassable Wilderness in Portland after he is kidnapped by a murder of crows.  Who knew that this impassable wilderness was actually hiding a whole civilization complete with an evil queen, an avian crown prince, soldiers who are coyotes and bandit heroes.  All within a stone's throw of the Willamette River. 

Sounds a little like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis? You would be right in thinking that.  

This book is very easy to like and it is quickly becoming a favorite of my fifth and sixth graders, who like quirky adventure stories with compelling heroes that are just average kids thrown into fantastic situations. The fabulous illustrations have been done by Carson Ellis, who is the wife of the author.  She's also known for illustrating The Mysterious Benedict Society. 

I created a novel study so that teachers could start to use this book with their classes and small groups.  It is available for download from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Right now, I've got it discounted to $2.00 because I'm hoping that people will take a look at it.  There are 43 pages worth of student activities, vocabulary builders and comprehension questions. The first 26 pages are a student packet suitable for guided reading. This novel study focuses on vocabulary building as well as analyzing story elements. The novel Wildwood has some great vocabulary! If your school is using NWEA MAP data, this lesson plan is suitable for students with RIT score levels 210-220 and 221-230. 

The multiple choice reading comprehension quizzes which are a part of the novel study are also available for a separate download at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

The assignments include an informational text feature called “EVIL IVY" which talks about the problem of invasive English ivy destroying some of the prettiest forests in the Pacific Northwest, including the one that I live near.  Here's a photo of some evil ivy close to my home.  

This assignment is available for FREE download from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

 

All in all -- a great weekend with a great book! I heartily recommend Wildwood to anyone who needs a good curl up read!

Also, in surfing around in the blogosphere, I found a cool looking Readability Calculator from Joe's Web Tools.  Worth a second look!

It's a SNOW DAY!

Hello from the normally rainy Pacific Northwest!  This was this morning's view from the backyard and my son and I have been loving the four inches of snow that we've received.  I spent some time today using the app called "Pages" to create a special activity for upper elementary students that helps them to practice their note-taking skills while learning the process behind how their school or school district chooses to call an emergency snow day.  

This four page activity is available for free on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  

I think that it is important to give students a chance to be reporters and that being able to gather information from an interview is a skill that deserves greater work.  

 

Martin Luther King Day -- What's in my front hall

Happy MLK Day!  I put together this bulletin board display for the front hall of my school.  I found some historical images of MLK and colorized them.  I think that they're realy eye-catching when placed surrounding one of my favorite quotes from his "I Have a Dream" speech.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

It's available on my Teachers Pay Teachers Web site.

A page of these bookmarks are available for FREE from the same site.

2012 -- My BEST year EVER!

While I hope that 2012 is my BEST YEAR EVER, I'd also like to help the students at my school realize that they can make it their best year as well.  So I've created a collection of three activities that focus on goal setting and character education.  It's on SALE for a BUCK on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

But I also made the third part of it available for free.  I'm calling that part "So This Year" and it asks students to consider a goal that they plan on achieving this year.  They need to consider the steps that they will take in order to achieve this goal.  Then they illustrate it as a comic strip. 



Living it LARGE is my shot at getting students to consider which character traits they admire in their friends and adults that they look up to.  It's called "Living it LARGE" because I think that those traits should be lived as if they are written in ALL CAPS!  LIKE YOU'RE SHOUTING!  OUT LOUD!  REALLY REALLY LOUD!

My goals this year are to continue to love my job and to continue to come up interesting ways to help learners be critical of information as well as LOVE READING! 

Gingerbread house in 7.5 graham crackers

This was today's "First Day of Winter Break" activity.  It is the world's easiest gingerbread house recipe and takes only seven and a half graham crackers and no milk carton in the middle. 


Since I had so much fun, I decided to write the plan down for you in graham crackers and royal icing. 

The 7.5 graham cracker gingerbread house plan.  Make the first floor with the crackers on the left.  Place the "top" graham cracker on the top of the floor.  Create the roof with the graham crackers on the right.  Decorate! Happy Holidays! 

STEPS:

1. Make royal icing. Here's a recipe from the Wilton Cake People! 

2. Put icing in a Ziploc bag. This helps keep the icing from drying out too quickly. Cut off one corner of the bag for piping.

3. Make the first floor by piping icing on the edges of the first floor pieces and creating a box with them. The inside piece gives the house extra strength.

4. Coat the bottom of the top piece with royal icing and lay on top of the first floor.

5. Affix the inside of the roof pieces to the top of the first floor in the center. Use them to brace the triangular side pieces.

6. Coat the bottom of the roof pieces with royal icing and lay on top. The roof pieces should touch the triangular side pieces as well as the internal
Brace.

7. Pipe additional icing at the edges.

8. Decorate! Consider adding features like a dormer window or a massive chocolate cookie snowman.

Linky Party for Veterans Day -- Patriotic Lesson Plans

I will admit to not being the most patriotic teacher in the nation.  In fact, I'm the kind of person who stands in respectful silence while the pledge is being recited, after coming to the realization that it didn't feel good to pledge allegiance to just one country.  I spend time working with my staff on activities that build conflict resolution skills, hoping that small steps will work towards having a more peaceful world.  

But the patriotic holiday that I embrace wholeheartedly is Veterans Day.  I have deep respect for and want to honor the men and women who have chosen to give their time and sometimes their lives for our country.  

I think that my school does a great job celebrating Veterans Day each year.  We put up stars in our halls celebrating the veterans in our lives as one massive "Wall of Honor," and I help one teacher put on an extended 30 minute television broadcast on our closed circuit television system.  You can hear a pin drop in the school when our program goes live. I know that it makes the students who's parents are in the armed forces feel very supported by the fact that we honor their family.

I've put a few free activities on my Teachers Pay Teachers store but I wanted to hear from other teachers about what they do to celebrate this day and other patriotic events.  Teaching about our country and how to be a good citizen in this nation IS very important but it is also important to find a way to do it that feels comfortable to the teacher.  I think that this a very difficult balance to create. 

So I'm creating my FIRST EVER LINKY PARTY to see what other people are doing in their classrooms to achieve this balance. Join me by putting a link to your citizenship or patriotic holiday lesson plan below!