You can celebrate Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day with your kids without the focus being on furry rodents and pink and red hearts. Use the month of February to show your kids why you love them with the “I Love You Shadow” tradition.
(This is great if you’re starting a Valentine’s countdown on February 1 but still want to acknowledge Groundhog Day on the 2nd!)

On Groundhog Day, February 2, I had Adaline lay down on a giant sheet of paper and I traced her outline on to it.
(If it’s a sunny day with good weather you can do this outside and actually trace the child’s shadow being cast on the paper as they stand nearby)

You can cut out the “shadow”, but Adaline chose to leave hers as it was.

Adaline wanted to draw a face on her “shadow”, which isn’t really very shadowy, but it made her happy! 🙂

Next we hung the “shadow” on her bedroom door.

Every day we wrote love notes to Adaline and hid them around the house. She was so excited to find a new note. You could write your love notes directly on the “shadow”, but I knew that Adaline would enjoy looking for her note each day. (Also, if you want to save the messages as a keepsake the notes will be easier to store than the entire “shadow” will.)

If you don’t want to do a scavenger hunt for notes each day, you can just attach them to your child’s door for them to see when they wake up. Adaline liked to put the hearts on the “shadow” herself.

If your children are old enough to write, have siblings write messages for each other. The messages can be something small like, “I love the silly dance you do when you hear your favorite song.” or something more serious such as, “I love how kind you are! Thank you for sharing with your sister today.” You can leave notes with scripture and reminders like “Jesus Loves You!”. The possibilities are endless.

(I’m not gonna lie, the thing hanging there with a face on it creeped us out a little bit. But we didn’t write that on one of the hearts, though 😉 “We love your picture even though it creeps us out on our way to the bathroom at night.”)

The idea of leaving love notes for your kids is nothing new. Adding the notes to their “shadow”, as if you were pinning these positive messages onto them directly, will have an even greater impact. Whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow this year your children can look at their own “shadow” and realize how truly loved they are. 🙂

Do you leave your child “love” notes for Valentine’s Day? Do you have any Groundhog Day or Valentine’s Day traditions? Let me know in the comments!

Fun Ideas for Groundhog Day / Groundhog Day: Shadow Puppets (Links) / Groundhog Day Goodies / Valentine’s Day Links

This post is linked to…
Show and Share Saturday / Design Dazzle: Valentine Link Party / Mama Gab: Pin it Party