Chances are, if you are not from Pennsylvania, you don't "celebrate" Groundhog Day. The most you know about it is from the movie "Groundhog Day". Thank you Bill Murray! Well, we love groundhog day here, although, I do have to say that the whole thing has proven to be a bit confusing to Violet. She seems to think that the groundhog really does control the seasons.
It gives us more imaginative play ideas too...pretending to pop out of our burrows and seeing or not seeing our shadows.
This little pop up puppet was clearly inspired by Wild Olive's groundhog iPod pocket.
I turned her groundhog pocket idea into a puppet that is similar to the pop up puppet that Violet made for Henry on his birthday. (We used the instructions from Family Fun magazine for the birthday puppet)
Here is what I did for the groundhog puppet...
Cut out groundhog shapes out of two pieces of brown felt and one smaller one out of gray felt (for the shadow). I stitched a little face onto one of the brown pieces and then sewed the two brown pieces together. Next, I cut off the bottom 1/3 of a water bottle and about six inches off of the bottom of an old pair of brown tights. I used hot glue to glue a dowel inside the toe part of the tights and then pulled the other part of the tights down around the water bottle to cover it and glued in place onto the water bottle. After you glue the tights add a small amount of glue to the top of the dowel (the part that is covered with the tights) and place it inside the groundhog puppet. Next, I cut a bit of burlap and glued it onto the water bottle and added a bit of felt for the grass around the top. Lastly, I glued the shadow on to one side.
Peekaboo!!
(sorry, no pictures of the making of...I was making this after the kids went to bed and in the poorly lit basement...Not very conducive to picture taking...)
And the news broke this morning...amid mostly cloudy skies...Somehow Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow.
Hooray!! We may, perhaps, be the only family to cheer six more weeks of winter...But we are holding out for one big snow storm! Maybe for Violet's birthday later this month...
Linking this fun little play thing up here today!
