Introduce Groundhog Day and shadows to preschool children through literature. Fill your classroom library with a variety of titles that pertain to these subjects, including "Gregory's Shadow" by Don Freeman, "Groundhog Day!" by Gail Gibbons and "Moonbear's Shadow" by Frank Asch. Allow the children to look through the books during their free time. Read the books aloud, discussing what happens in the stories, and asking children to make predictions while you are reading. Relate books about shadows to books about Groundhog's Day and see if children can make a link between the two themes.
Create a groundhog craft to prepare for Groundhog's Day. Print out images of groundhogs and instruct children to color them in and cut them out. Have kids color the outside of a paper cup green. Cut a slit in the bottoms of the cups for them. Glue the groundhog pictures to the ends of craft sticks and insert the craft sticks into the slit on the bottoms of the cups. Kids can move the stick up and down, making it look as if the groundhog is moving in and out of its hole.
Play a shadow guessing game with your students. Turn off the lights in the classroom and place an object on an overhead projector, or hold an object up in front of a flashlight, casting the image onto a wall. Ask children if they can determine what the items are based on their shadows. Choose items that are fairly easy to identify based on their shadows, such as teddy bears, a pair of scissors and a ball.
Engage your students in a game of shadow tag. Take them outside on a sunny day and select a person to be "it." Children run around and "it" tries to tag them by stepping on their shadows. Upon being tagged, children must sit out and the last person standing replaces "it" in the next round of the game.