Groundhog Day lesson planner, activities and free printables

Groundhog Day, February 2, is kind of a silly holiday but it breaks up the monotony of winter. It's a good time to teach lesson plans on animal hibernation, calendar, seasons and other science facts. A-Z Teacher Stuff has a collection of free printable Groundhog Day worksheets and activities.

Use groundhog themed lesson plans to teach earth's orbit around the sun, length of days, calendar skills, math, sorting, graphing, writing and counting. Preschool kids love it when teachers incorporate holiday themes into lesson plans. Use free printable groundhogs worksheets for a booklet of activities. Perhaps it could be used as homework?

Groundhog Day is the homepage of the Punxatawney Phil groundhogs club. There are many cute free printable Groundhog Day worksheets and interactive activities for teachers for Feb. 2. Print cut-outs of groundhogs and explore the science of light and shadows. Make thumbprint groundhogs for arts and crafts. Let kids enjoy coloring pages of groundhogs. For fun hands-on lesson plans, do tracings of groundhogs, which are kind of like shadows. 

Throw a Groundhog Day party for preschool, special needs and younger elementary age kids. Serve "groundhog food"(aka trail mix). Give kids bags with dried cereal, raisins, M&Ms and pretzels. Or set out a veggie tray which rodents would love. Read books about rodents, such as "Hooway for Wodney Wat" and "Francis" the badger stories. 

Chinese New Year party printables, crafts, lesson plans, activities, Year of the Dog party for homeschool families

Chinese New Year, also called the Spring Festival, begins late January or early February on the western calendar. CNY 2015 starts Feb. 19. It's Year of the Sheep or Goat. Here are easy, inexpensive ideas to throw a Chinese New Year festival in a school classroom or at homeschool or with your family. Sheep (goat) themed activities are included.

"Travel" to China. Start at the DL-TK website's for free printable Chinese New Year activities. Read books on China.

Decorate with free printable Chinese crafts., symbols, clipart and graphics to use for decorations. Children can use to make banners, desk decor. Create greeting cards and give to elderly.

Make crafts. Use the free printable CNY activities from the link above. Make Chinese zodiac calendars, lantern crafts (for Lantern Festival), hats, paper dolls, booklets, and a Chinese zodiac wreath. Print CNY recipes, coloring pages, crafts, games with lots of printables.

Learn about animals of the zodiac. The link above has pages of activities devoted to each animal: horse, dog, rat, rooster, dragon, pig, sheep, rabbit, monkey, ox, tiger and snake. There coloring pages, booklets and more.

Host a pageant. Help children create animal costumes from the dress up bin and recycled materials. Got more than 12 students? Do male, female and baby animals (ram-ewe-lamb). This teaches science vocabulary.

Sample Chinese foods. The Chinese New Year theme is luck. Simple kid-friendly treats would be animals crackers (horses), iced tea, fortune cookies, dumplings, spring rolls (egg rolls), cherries, Mandarin oranges and fish crackers.

Play games. Links above have printable puzzles and games. DL-TK link has a printable quilt with a square for each animal. That could be used as a bingo or memory game. In China, children are given lucky gold coins. Get some foil-wrapped gold coins and hide them for kids to find.

Host a Lantern Festival. Use links for ideas, activities and printables. Lantern Festival rounds out the new year activities and is celebrated about two weeks later.

Say "Gong Xi Fa Cai" (Gong Hey Fat Choy") to wish Happy New Year!