Last year on February 2nd I thought it would be fun to do shadow puppets with the kids to celebrate Groundhog Day, but not last year because I hadn’t thought of it soon enough and I didn’t think Shimri and Shimei particularly would be that interested in it given their age. So I put that thought away for later.

About two weeks ago I remembered that thought and had a second thought. I knew it would be fun to do with our kids, but I also knew that Iddo loves getting together with her friends so I suggested to her that we invite some of her friends over and we have a Groundhog Day party. Because why not. She LOVED the idea and was so excited. She started counting down till Groundhog Day. Nobody has ever looked forward to Groundhog Day more than she did this year.

So Iddo colored some groundhogs and we put together some invites and she was so excited to take them around to her friends. Then I started pulling together all the activities I could that dealt with shadows and sunlight. We live in Tucson, so we could pretty much count on a lot of sun for a Groundhog Day party.

We were definitely doing shadow puppets. I had some sun print paper left from the solar eclipse last summer. Amazon suggested I buy some UV reactive beads to go with the sun print paper, so I did. And for some strange reason I have a prairie dog/groundhog cookie cutter, and fun days at our house always involve sugar cookies.

We started the party by stringing the beads to make some bracelets that changed colors every time we ran outside to do another activity (the photo below was taken inside so the beads all look white). I cut out some shadow puppet shapes – animals, butterflies, suns, and moons, for everyone and after making our bracelets they each got to put their shapes on a piece of sun print paper and we watched the shadows make a design on the paper. After making the sun prints we taped the shapes to skewers and they each got a chance to sit behind the shadow puppet screen and tell us a quick story. To finish the party they each decorated a huge groundhog cookie with M&Ms and sprinkles.

Speaking for myself, and based on the noises from the girls, it was a successful party.

Happy Groundhog Day!