Our family has a Groundhog Day party tradition, where we stay up and watch the movie Groundhog Day. The movie is ridiculous and silly, but that is why we like it! Please check out parental reviews on the movie before letting your children watch it. There are a number of scenes where the main character tries to kill himself in comical ways, because he knows he will just wake up and do it all over again the next day.
I also get to plan a kids only Groundhog Day party!! I can hardly wait. If you have very little time, I have a website you can go to and end up with an entire party in one click. Ready for it? Here it is. This site has such great ideas I actually want to do all of them! So cute and fun!
For this party, we had food that represent winter and some that represent spring. We also asked everyone to come dressed according to their prediction.
After a brief discussion about groundhogs and Groundhog Day, we started with the treasure hunt. The clues are printable if you are a premium member on Scribd but if you are not – there are several groundhog graphics on the above mentioned site to print. Then I printed the clues and just taped them on the back. Not as cute as the original ones, but the kids did not care. On the original blog, she created the groundhog prizes out of brown bags and then sewed them closed with candy inside. We chose to hot glue them for simplicity and put M & Ms inside. The kids loved it and they turned out really cute.
Dot to dot/ prediction sheet: It was very quick to prepare, and interesting to see if the children think it will be an early spring or six more weeks of winter.
Next we tackled painting. We had a HUGE number of children (17 to be exact; ranging from 18 months to 13 years old). It was interesting, to say the least. But the shadow painting was fairly simple for all involved.
After creating the shadows, we made pop up groundhogs. I have to remember that it is a good idea to create a sample BEFORE the party. (Maybe now that I typed it I can remember.) The cups that I had were too big – the grass we cut did not fit around the entire top and the groundhog was too short to pop up enough to be seen. So we improvised – we cut down the cups and it resolved both issues. So try it out with what you have, you will likely be able to get it to work.
Like I always say, what is a party without food? So we did these adorable groundhog dirt cups (chocolate pudding with crushed Oreos.) We used black frosting gel to create the eyes, nose and mouth and to “glue” the almond slivers on for ears. It actually was a great activity for the girls; they thoroughly enjoyed doing the decorating.
We hope you have a wonderful Groundhog Day!
Groundhog Day CLIP
I just have to tell you I felt a little like a nerd at the store today. Everyone and their uncle was purchasing things for their Super Bowl parties. I, on the other hand, was purchasing items for my Groundhog Day party. he he
You ARE silly. You should have felt like an awesome mom for thinking about a kids party over the other this weekend
That sounds like so much fun! I hardly ever think to go all out to learn about fun days like Groundhog’s Day. I’ll have to keep these ideas for next year.
We totally blew off this holiday this year due to the flu. I pinned this to my Pinterest board so we can use it next year, though!
Thanks Linsey! I hope you are feeling better ~ V
Looks like fun, we never even talk about Groundhog day, we will definitely do something next year.