Shadow Dancing

Photo from visitpa.com
PHIL 'ER UP: Today's Groundhog Day and boy did we go whole hog for groundhogs!

From an article on Live Science and a video on The History Channel, we learned that groundhogs are about the size of our dog Kirby - no bigger than 21 inches and 12 pounds max. Members of the order Rodentia (in other words, they're rodents), groundhogs are in the Sciuridae family (which includes squirrels), and belong to the genus Marmota.

Groundhogs have long, grayish guard hairs tipped with brown or a dull red covering a dense, woolly undercoat. Another trait they share with Kirby: many groundhogs have a patch of white fur around the nose. Groundhogs' incisors which never stop growing (thank goodness gnawing keeps them in check). They usually start hibernating in October and awake in March or April - unless you're Punxsutawney Phil and live an alternative lifestyle, shall we say. Unlike his groundhog brethren, Phil lives in an enclosure next to the Punxsutawney Memorial Library with his "bride" Phyllis and a couple of other marmots.

While Phil's purported to be 124 years old (the groundhog and his shadow tradition in Punxsutawney dates back to 1886), we are dubious. His relatives live up to six years in the wild and just 10 years in captivity.

We found that Animal Planet had a special "Day of the Groundhog" feature, including written info about groundhogs, footage of the creatures, and historical information about Groundhog Day. After checking all that out, we took the Groundhog Day Challenge quiz from the Discovery Channel.

DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: In researching Groundhog Day activities, I found a Web site new to us. Artists Helping Kids with Arts. There, I found a quick-and-easy make a groundhog project using supplies we had on hand (including empty toilet paper rolls ).ORDER UP: The kids completed a Groundhog Day alphabetical order exercise from Apples 4 the Teacher, using 16 words, including some that started with the same letter, so they had to do "tiebreakers" (comparing letters deeper into the word). While they worked, I played "Shadow Dancing" for them. That just has to be Punxatawney Phil's theme song, right? I followed it up with "Shadows in the Moonlight," just for good measure. (Wow, when was the last time you listened to an Anne Murray song? Talk about a blast from the past. ...)

HISTORY OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Why groundhogs as the harbinger of a longer winter or earlier spring? The Discovery Channel has a fantastic timeline of the evolution of Groundhog Day. It's packed full of information from ancient times to present day and did a really great job of explaining the mishmash of ancient pagan (the festival of Brigid, called Imbolc or Oimelc) and early Christian (Candlemas) traditions. Some of Pennsylvania's earliest settlers were German and they brought traditions with them, transferring some involving European hedgehogs to groundhogs.

After we brushed up on history, together, we tackled a rather challenging 96-piece Puxatawney Phil jigsaw puzzle online.

GROUNDBREAKING GROUNDHOG: As you might expect, P. Phil has official Web sites (yes, plural - one being VisitPA.com, then there's http://www.punxsutawneyphil.com/ and there's also a third, groundhog.org, the official site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club (the latter wasn't loading for us earlier in the day - no doubt its server was getting overloaded!).

But this year, for the first time, Phil's forecast was sent via text message and Twitter.

It's also worth mentioning Phil has his own YouTube channel, which the kids loved, might I add. The videos depict someone in a groundhog costume battling it out with someone in a shadow groundhog costume. Some of the videos are just funny, but a few are downright weird dookie - Twin Peaks-esque. For example, most of the Groundhog Dreams series, including Chapter 2: Dining for Marmots.

GREAT GROUNDHOGS!: Together, the kids read "Great Groundhogs!," an early reader chapter book that I scored at the library last week. I did a quick Yahoo! search and actually found a lesson plan (a several page PDF) to go with the book (gotta love the Internet!). It came from ABCteach.com (a site I'd never seen before), and included vocabulary, a word scramble, a word search puzzle, comprehension questions, a fill in the blank page, a true-false test and a writing activity. That kept us busy for awhile!