The largest Groundhog Day celebration is held in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where crowds as large as 40,000 people have gathered to celebrate this event since 1886.
On this page, you will find Groundhog Day teaching resources for English that include ideas for writing prompts and printable worksheets for creating a Groundhog Day booklet.
Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks or marmots, grow to be over two feet long and weight 8 to 12 pounds.
According to the legend, if the groundhog sees his shadow, that means that there will be six more weeks of winter. If the groundhog does not see his shadow, spring will arrive early.
Groundhog Day Writing Prompts:
Welcome my Groundhog Day Lesson Plans page for teachers.
Groundhog Day is observed on February 2 in the United States and Canada. This day, which is 40 days after Christmas, is also called Candlemas Day, a Christian festival of candle blessing.
But woolly bear caterpillars aren’t the best prognosticators, either: While their bands may vary from year to year, researchers have found the variation is due to last year’s weather, not the upcoming winter.
The men trekked to a site called Gobbler’s Knob, where the inaugural groundhog became the bearer of bad news when he saw his shadow.
Also known as woodchucks, groundhogs belong to a group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. They grow up to 25 inches long and can live for 10 years in captivity. (According to legend, Punxsutawney Phil is more than 125 years old thanks to the magical punch he imbibes every summer.)
Groundhogs spend the winter hibernating in their burrows, significantly reducing their metabolic rate and body temperature
What About Woolly Bears?
As Christianity spread through Europe, Imbolc evolved into Candlemas, a feast commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the holy temple in Jerusalem. In certain parts of Europe, Christians believed that a sunny Candlemas meant another 40 days of cold and snow.
While sunny winter days are indeed associated with colder, drier air, we probably shouldn’t trade in our meteorologists for groundhogs just yet. Studies by the National Climatic Data Center and the Canadian weather service have yielded a dismal success rate of around 50 percent for Punxsutawney Phil.
Staten Island Chuck, on the other hand, is reportedly accurate almost 80 percent of the time.
The first official Groundhog Day celebration took place on February 2, 1887, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It was the brainchild of local newspaper editor Clymer Freas, who sold a group of businessmen and groundhog hunters—known collectively as the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club—on the idea.
If you like this poem, be sure to check out Amy’s author website and her poetry blog, The Poem Farm. Her blog is very classroom-focused, and it includes many wonderful resources for teachers who wish to learn more about writing workshop and setting up writing notebooks with students.
A few years ago, I wrote a partner poem“Groundhog Grumbles” featuring a groundhog and a group of kids. In the poem, the grouchy groundhog is not thrilled to be the center of everyone’s attention on Groundhog Day… all he wants to do is hide in his hole until spring! (I mean, really… wouldn’t you?!)
Students will love changing their voices in the poem to match the different characters as they practice fluency and expression. After reading the poem, they can compare the different perspectives and discuss how both sides view Groundhog Day.
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“Groundhog Grumbles” – A Poem for Two Voices
- Diary of a Groundhog – Have your students write a journal/diary entry from the groundhog. This is a great way to get the students to think about the groundhog’s feelings and point of view!
- Letter from a Groundhog – Ask your students to write a persuasive letter from the groundhog to the community. They can choose whether to ask the town to leave the groundhog alone, or they can come up with their own idea for a persuasive letter. With letter-writing, students will have fun coming up with a voice for the groundhog!
- Interview with a Groundhog – Students can create a back-and-forth interview between a groundhog and a news reporter. In this interview, students can share how the groundhog feels and can have fun coming up with different questions a reporter may ask him!
Partner poems are wonderful for teaching point of view and different perspectives.
After reading the poem, I have my students identify what is being compared in the poem (today vs. yesterday). We set up a t-chart on chart paper and students help me underline clues and record details from the poem for each column: “today” (February 3) and “yesterday” (February 2).
Every February 2, tens of thousands of spectators attend Groundhog Day events in Punxsutawney, a borough that’s home to some 6,000 people. It was immortalized in the 1993 film Groundhog Day, which was actually shot in Woodstock, Illinois.
For the last 30 years, residents of Vermillion, Ohio, have turned to a very different creature for their annual weather forecast: the woolly bear caterpillar. According to tradition, if the bugs have more orange than black coloring in autumn, the upcoming winter will be mild.
More than 100,000 people attend the town’s Woollybear Festival, held every fall since 1972.
Nowadays, the yearly festivities in Punxsutawney are presided over by a band of local dignitaries known as the Inner Circle. Its members wear top hats and conduct the official proceedings in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect. (They supposedly speak to the groundhog in “Groundhogese.”)
First Groundhog Day
Groundhogs spend the winter hibernating in their burrows, significantly reducing their metabolic rate and body temperature
While sunny winter days are indeed associated with colder, drier air, we probably shouldn’t trade in our meteorologists for groundhogs just yet. Studies by the National Climatic Data Center and the Canadian weather service have yielded a dismal success rate of around 50 percent for Punxsutawney Phil.
The first official Groundhog Day celebration took place on February 2, 1887, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It was the brainchild of local newspaper editor Clymer Freas, who sold a group of businessmen and groundhog hunters—known collectively as the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club—on the idea.
The Presidential election of November 1920 was therefore the first occasion in which women in all of the states were allowed to exercise their right of suffrage.
According to the legend, if the groundhog sees his shadow, that means that there will be six more weeks of winter. If the groundhog does not see his shadow, spring will arrive early.
