The Four Seasons Lesson Plan

Maria Zappa-Kasapidi
 The Four Seasons Unit: Lesson Plan

Unit topics (themes): Language Arts, Arts, Earth Science.

Grade Level: 1st - 2nd

Lesson Objectives:
In this unit, students will use the resources in order:
 To explore the cause of the seasons.
 To identify the differences between four seasons and study facts about each season.
 To associate pictures with the four different seasons’ activities, clothes and weather
conditions.
 To describe (by writing and/or drawing) the different characteristics of each season.

Competencies:
 Communicate through speaking, writing, or drawing observations, predictions, and
conclusions.
 Design and conduct an investigation to answer questions about events, making and
recording observations using appropriate resources.

Instructional Technique:
 Class discussion/ brainstorming.
 Group work.
 Reading/writing/Drawing activities.
 Using ICT.

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Adaptions:
Students with special needs will be allowed to have more time to work on the lesson. Pairing
into groups will also be beneficial for these students. Struggling readers will be guided by the
teacher.

Instructional Materials:

 Books: There are a lot of books about seasons. My favorite are “Four Seasons Make a
Year”, “The Reasons for Seasons” and “Sunshine Makes the Seasons”. But you can use
any book you like!

 The “Four Seasons” Notebook file (for Smart Board-30 pages) or the same name inter-
active presentation (40-slides for any type of interactive board).

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  The 10 pages printable file “The four seasons (facts+language activities)”.
 The “4 seasons’ wheel”.
 The attached “weather.pdf” and travel guides (most of them have descriptions of the
weather and activities based on weather conditions).
 The on line quiz.
 Poster paper, markers, crayons, scissors, glue, colored construction paper.
 Interactive board, computers.

Theoretical perspective / Standards

 It is important to teach student’s the movement of the earth.

 It is necessary for them to learn about the different characteristics that are involved in
each season caused by the earth’s rotation and revolution.
 It is also important for students to be able to distinguish the differences between sea-
sons and when each season starts and ends in each hemisphere.

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 1. Common Core Standards: English Language Arts » Reading: Informational Text

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.1 CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.9
Ask and answer questions about key de- Identify basic similarities in and differ-
tails in a text. ences between two texts on the same
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.2 topic (e.g., in illustrations, descriptions,
Identify the main topic and retell key or procedures).
details of a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.2
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.3 Identify the main topic of a multipara-
Describe the connection between two graph text as well as the focus of spe-
individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of cific paragraphs within the text.
information in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.2.3
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.7 Describe the connection between a se-
Use the illustrations and details in a text ries of historical events, scientific ideas
to describe its key ideas. or concepts, or steps in technical proce-
dures in a text.

2. Common Core Standards: English Language Arts » Writing

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.2
Write informative/explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts
about the topic, and provide some sense of closure.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.3
Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, in-
clude some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order,
and provide some sense of closure.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.8
With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather
information from provided sources to answer a question.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.2.2
Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and defini-
tions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section.

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 3. Common Core Standards: English Language Arts » Language

Use effectively all basic concepts for grades 1 and 2.

4. Common Core Standards: Science:
S4.A.2.1.3: Observe a natural phenomenon (e.g., weather changes), record observa-
tions, and then make a prediction based on those observations.
S3.A.3.1.2: Identify changes in natural or humanmade systems.

Duration
This lesson stretches over the whole school year.

Procedure

Introductory Activities:
1. Use the “4 seasons’ wheel” and ask students what do they know about each sea-
son where the wheel stops.
2. Ask them to guess why we have four seasons (the causes of them).

Activities:
 Read the book that you have chosen about the four seasons.
 After reading the book get students to think about seasons by asking questions (What
was this book about? What did you recognize about the four seasons? What season
is it now? How do you know this? Which season of those shown in the book is your
favorite?)
 Ask them to tell characteristics in each season (weather, dates the seasons start and
end etc.).
 Make a chart to fill and display it throughout your study of seasons.
 Use the notebook file “seasons1.notebook” or the interactive presentation. After
watching the included video of earth, ask students to make models of earth and sun
and show how earth orbits around the sun. Remind students that Earth tilts at an
angle as it orbits the Sun.
 Students will get into groups and come up with some descriptive words about each
season. Call each group to write also on the chart their words.
 Talk about weather. Use pages 7-8-9 from the notebook file (or from the presentation)
and the weather.pdf printable (included) to write down the temperature from differ-
ent cities in the same latitude.

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 Use Wikipedia’s list of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_latitude to find
cities at the same latitude and “The weather Channel” http://www.weather.com/ to
find each town’s weather conditions.
 Give students the 10 pages printable file “The four seasons (facts+language).pdf” and
ask them to use it in order:
1. To recall knowledge (pages 1-5)
2. To use language and writing activities (pages 6-10) to recall basic language
concepts (as make new words, alphabetical order, make sentences, adjec-
tives, figurative language) and creative writing activities.

 Now it is the time for some real Art!

Use the attached file “Seasons paintings.ppsx” (included) presentation talking about dif-
ferent styles that painters have use to present their favorite season.
Once this is done, ask students to make their own paintings (a piece of art work that best
describes each of the season) by using the construction paper.
Tape finished paintings on the classroom’s wall. All student’s will walk around and see
each other’s work.

Closure:
After the lesson the students will need to go onto a computer and try our “Four Seasons
on-line interactive quiz”. This will show how well they learned the seasons.
Each student will be given a piece of paper to record their score for each quiz’s part. This
will be done individually for better assessment.

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 Evaluation:

1 2 3 4

Questions from Student did not Student an- Student an- Student an-
book and from in- answer the swered some of swered almost swered all of the
formational text. questions the questions. all of the ques- questions in full
Major pieces of tions. A few mi- detail.
information were nor details were
left out. left out.
Art work Painting was Painting had a lit- Painting had Painting was
not colorful tle color and one somewhat col- very colorful
and does not or two elements orful and three and had more
have any de- of the season. or four elements than four ele-
tails. of the season. ments of the
season.
Weather research Student didn’t Student com- Student com- Student finished
any research. pleted two or pleted five rows the research
three rows of the of the table cor- correctly.
table correctly. rectly.

On line quiz Score under 50 Score under 70 Score 80-100 Score over 100
points in total. points in total. points in total. points in total.

Thank you for using my file.

If you have any questions or comments please contact me via mail (mariak@inter-ed.gr)
If you have time enough please follow my shop and rate my work.

Maria Zappa-Kasapidi

Page border from: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tracee-Orman

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