It's Winter by Susan Swan and Linda Glaser: Activities for Your Preschool Classroom

It's Winter by Susan Swan and Linda Glaser: Activities for Your Preschool Classroom
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Use these It’s Winter by Linda Glaser activities to teach your preschool class about the winter season. You can use the activities

provided in the lesson plans in this series separately, or you can use both of them. They work very well when used in conjunction with one another. These activities would also be great used in a unit on all four seasons.

Materials

Materials needed for activities related to <em>It’s Winter</em>:

  • White copy paper (8.5x11)—one per student plus one for you
  • Construction paper (9x12)
  • Crayons/markers
  • Scissors
  • Hole Punch
  • Yarn
  • Pictures of activities during the four seasons
  • Images of winter activities (optional)

Prior Knowledge

Talk to students about the weather. See if they notice any changes, especially if it has been getting colder.

Teach

Talk to your class about how there are four seasons and what season it is. Discuss what happens during winter and how the weather turns colder. Show students the cover of It’s Winter and have them make a prediction about what the book will be about. Read the book stopping to discuss what happens in the story.

Procedure

After you have finished reading the book, talk about activities your students like to do during winter. Include some of your favorites, too. Brainstorm a list of activities together. If you live in a warmer climate, you may need to modify this activity. Brainstorm a list to go along with the book’s activities, such as sledding, building snowmen, and drinking hot chocolate. You may even want to show your students pictures of these activities.

Explain that today students will be making a mobile with their favorite winter activities. Pass out one sheet of copy paper to each student. Explain that students will be making their very own snowflakes. This will be the top of the mobile. Show students how to fold their paper into fourths, and then show them how to cut in different places to make a snowflake design.

You can either have students draw pictures of their favorite activities on construction paper, or you can pass out copies of winter activity images for students to color. Have students draw and color or color the pictures of their favorite winter activities. While students are doing this, go around and punch holes in the bottom of the snowflakes and in the tops of the pictures. Then, have students cut out the pictures.

Attach the pictures to the snowflake using the yarn. Tie a knot at both of the holes to attach the pictures to the mobile.

Assess

Find and print four pictures showing activities done during each season. During free play time, have students come up one at a time and identify the picture that shows the winter activity.

Extend

Teach about other aspects of winter. Teach about the holidays that occur during winter, such as Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.

This post is part of the series: All About Winter: Winter Lesson Plans

These winter lesson plans will teach your students all about the winter season. These lesson plans use a favorite book, It’s Winter by Linda Glaser. Your students will enjoy learning about different aspects of winter with these activities.

  1. Having Fun With &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Winter&rdquo; by Susan Swan and Linda Glaser
  2. What Animals Do During Winter: Hibernation