Yes, this is Groundhog Day!

It is celebrated every year on Feb. 2. The official groundhog lives in Punxsutawney, Pa. His name is Punxsutawney Phil. According to legend, if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow — that is, the day is bright and sunny — there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not see his shadow, and the day is overcast, there will be an early spring.

On Feb. 2, Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his burrow at Gobbler’s Knob in front of thousands of followers from all over the world to predict the weather for the rest of the season.

One thing young children love to do is to be an amateur meteorologist. Have your young children as young as 3 to look outside and predict what they think the weather will be like that day. This can make for early-morning conversational learning and using appropriate thinking skills as children take what they have learned to decide what clothes they need to wear that day.

Young children at home and in the classroom love to be weather helpers. They love to look outside and draw what the weather looks like. Children love to study the different shapes of clouds such as cumulus, which look like cotton candy; cirrus clouds, which look feathery; and stratus clouds, which are black and gray. An all-time favorite young children love to do is to make out shapes out of clouds. You would be surprised at how creative your little one is!

 Young children love to observe and learn about different kinds of precipitation — rain, sleet, snow and hail. Children love to do experiments with evaporation by wetting a surface like a blackboard and watch the water disappear. They wonder where the water disappears! This gives parents the opportunity to talk about the water cycle in which water drops evaporate in the air and goes up into clouds to make different forms of evaporation that fall back to the earth.

Outside thermometers are valuable teaching tools of how cold or hot it is in degrees.

Going back to groundhogs, explain hibernation. Ask your young child what they like to do when winter comes and weather becomes really cold. We go on with our business despite how cold it is outside but many animals choose to stay home and sleep through the entire season. We call this hibernation. Bears, groundhogs, frogs, turtles, bats and snakes all hibernate.

Beth Pinyerd lives in Daphne and serves as director of younger children at Faith Family Fellowship in Spanish Fort.

Her column appears regularly in The Bulletin.