The Reasons for the Seasons: 1st Grade Lesson Plan on Seasons
Learning about the seasons will provide an excellent vehicle to examine the circular pattern of the cycle, the matching of clothes to the appropriate season, the classifying of activities in each season and opportunities for the students to illustrate all of these things.
Gather students together and discuss with them the names of the seasons.Print each one on a separate chart paper. Help the students to think about how life changes with each passing season. Ask them questions such as: Do you wear the same clothes all year? Why or why not? When do flowers appear in gardens and parks?
Choose one of the books about seasons to share with your students.
Book suggestions:
Skip Through the Seasons by Stella Blackstone
Circle of Seasons by Gerda Muller
The Reasons for Seasons by Gail Gibbons
Ask what is one thing that happens in each season every year? Why does it happen in that particular season and not another?
A Class Project
Explain to the students that everyone is going to take part in making a mural to show each season. Have prepared a very large circle of mural paper (you may need to tape several widths together to make a really large area) divided into quarters. Each quarter should have one of the seasons as its title.
Go back to the charts and add the students’ observations as you investigate each season.
Spring
Discuss and add to the chart. What happens to the trees at this time of year? Are baby animals born? What clothes do we begin to wear? What sports or activities begin?
Task for the mural:
Invite each student to draw a Spring picture of an animal, plant, or activity (or cut out a suitable picture from a magazine). Paste the pictures on to the Spring quarter of the mural.
Summer
Continue discussion by asking what season follows Spring? What happens to the baby animals? How do the trees change? What different sports or activities begin? How are clothes different in the Summer? Add their observations to the chart.
Task for the mural:
Invite each child to draw a Summer picture of an animal, tree, or activity and paste the pictures on to the Summer quarter of the mural.
Fall
Ask the students what season follows Summer? How does the weather change in the Fall? What different activities take place in the Fall? What do animals do to prepare for the next season? What is different about the clothes worn at this time of the year? Why is this season called the “fall”? Add the observations to the chart.
Task for the mural:
Draw or cut out pictures and paste them on to the Fall quarter of the mural.
Winter
Review the different aspects of Spring, Summer and Fall. What happens to flowers, birds, trees and animals during the Winter? How do our own lives change during this season?
Task for the mural:
Draw or cut out pictures and paste them on the Winter quarter of the mural.
Follow-up Activity
After looking at the finished picture, share lots of discussion comparing the different activities, clothing, changes. It is important that the students come to the realization that the seasons form a cycle that is repeated every year - a circular pattern.Display the mural on a wall either in the classroom or outside in the hallway.
Then suggest to the students that they may like to make their own “Season Wheel”. Provide each student with 2 circles (one of them with a “quarter” cut out) Click here for pattern 1.Click here for pattern 2.
Ask them to make up their own illustrations for each of the seasons on the complete circle. Then join the two circles together with a brad fastener. This “wheel” emphasizes the repeating cycle of the seasons of the year.
The mural and “Season Wheels” will show a wide variety of seasonal activities. Ask your students if they think that people everywhere have the same seasons. This will open up the opportunity to examine other areas of the world and compare their seasons to your own.