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February 2nd is that most auspicious day — Groundhog Day!  When we all wait with bated breath to see if Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow and thus predict six more weeks of winter.  There are other, local groundhogs as well, but Phil is undoubtedly the most famous and well known.

UPDATE: Phil did not see his shadow (no big surprise considering that so much of the United States is covered in snow and is overcast at best) but lets hope that means an early Spring — because I think most of us are ready for that!

We always start with a visit to Phil’s official Groundhog Day page to check out the photos, the weather forecast and videos.  They also have a history of  Groundhog Day.

Did you know that Groundhog day has its roots all the way to the early Christians in England?

Or that the first official Groundhog day was held in Punxsutawney in 1886?

And that Phil appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1995?  I bet he was a great interview subject

If you would like to visit some Groundhogs at our local Saint Louis Zoo they are located in the Children’s Zoo.  I don’t think any of them will be rushing outside in this weather — they’d sink in the snow!

Another way we celebrate Groundhog Day is watching the movie starring Bill Murray — Groundhog Day.  It’s very funny and a perfect movie to hand out indoors with some popcorn, especially when Groundhog Day ends up being cold and snowy like this year.

Next year, we are going to try out this Groundhog Day Cake — it looks adorable and the kids would love to help make it.   This is on our list of to-do things for the future or maybe the Groundhog Cookies on the official site.

Yesterday we worked on a craft to celebrate Groundhog Day.  I found a Punxsutawney Phil Portrait craft over on Kaboose (where there are several games and activities for Groundhog Day including a fun quiz about groundhogs).   I didn’t have felt on hand so we decided to to use construction paper instead and add some googly eyes for fun.

Using the template from Kaboose we cut out the various parts for Phil out of colored construction paper:

Here is Mac working on gluing together the various pieces:

And here is his finished Punxsutawney Phil portrait

Alex spent a lot of time getting her portrait just right:

It takes a lot of time to make the perfect Groundhog portrait apparently!

Here is her finished Groundhog Day portrait of Phil:

Alex thought this was a lot of fun so she started a second Groundhog Day portrait but this time one named Stinker (because he looks rather more like a skunk then a groundhog — he’s unique it seems

After all the portraits were completed we added ribbon and hung them up so we’ll be ready for Phil’s big moment:

And for a couple cute Groundhog Day books Alex and Mac recommend:

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