Shadow Investigations - ELP/Grade 1

February 2nd marks Groundhog Day in Canada.  On this day, weather forecasters and lay people alike, spend hours watching and anticipating the emerging of famous groundhogs such as Wiarton Willie and Punxsutawney Phil. "Why?", you might ask, is it so important for us? Early 18th and 19th Century folklore says that if it is cloudy on the day that the groundhog emerges, then spring will come early; if not, then we are due to see six more weeks of winter! Therefore, if the groundhog sees his shadow (indicating that it's sunny), then we can expect six more weeks of winter.  After this winter, I'm sure most of us are believers!

Many of the children in our class were born in other countries, therefore, this concept of Groundhog Day was very new to them.

I thought this might be a fun way to spark and interest in "shadows" with the children.  We had a discussion on, "what is a shadow?" and we found that many children did not know, so we did some investigation. 

We set up the projector and got the children to parade past to see their shadows.  During outdoor playtime, we took them out to explore shadows in the sun.

We traced their shadows so that the children could capture their shadow for good!

We had so much fun investigating our shadows!