Description
What our Four Seasons lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Four Seasons teaches students what causes the seasons to change from one to the next and why. Students will discover the role of Earth’s rotation around the sun in these changes. They will also learn that some places don’t have all four seasons. This lesson is for students in 1st grade and 2nd grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. For this lesson, the only other supplies you will need in addition to the worksheets are colored pencils.
Options for Lesson
There are several suggestions in the “Options for Lesson” section for additional activities or tasks or alternate ways to approach parts of the lesson. You might want to incorporate these into the lesson if you have time or want to extend it. One idea is to show students additional images for the first activity that represent different seasons and have them guess which one the picture depicts. Another option is to complete the practice page together as a class rather than individually. Students could four draw pictures from scratch, one for each season. One more idea is to demonstrate the tilting of the earth and show how it rotates around the sun. Students could stand in a circle to help with the demonstration. Some of the materials you could use include a globe, a flashlight, and so on. Another option is to take students outside at the same time each day once a month throughout the year and track where the sun is in the sky.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page provides a little extra guidance for the lesson. It mentions that the science behind the cause of seasons can be a little hard to understand for many younger students. Therefore, you should focus more on the seasons themselves and what happens during each one. You can use the blank lines on this page to write down thoughts or ideas you have as you prepare.
FOUR SEASONS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Seasons
The Four Seasons lesson plan contains three content pages. The first page explains what a season is and how many seasons there are. The weather changes throughout the year in most places in the world. For the most part, there are a few months at a time that have roughly the same weather. Then the next few months have different weather. These periods are what we call seasons. There are four seasons: spring, summer, fall (or autumn), and winter.
A season is a period of the year with different temperatures, weather patterns, and changes in nature that differ from other periods. The parts of the Earth between the North and South Poles usually experience the four seasons, including the United States. Not every place on Earth has these changes, though. In some places, it feels like summer or winter all year long. Places closest to the equator, for instance, almost always have hot temperatures. And the North and South Poles are always cold.
Seasons occur because of the rotation of the Earth on its axis. One half of the Earth, or one hemisphere, leans toward the sun while the other hemisphere leans away. When the Northern Hemisphere leans toward the sun for part of the year, there is more sunlight and warmer weather. This is when these places experience summer. During another part of the year, the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun and gets less sunlight and cooler weather. This is when winter occurs.
When it is summer in one hemisphere, it is winter in the other. The different angles of the Earth, because it is tilted, cause the changes in the seasons. In between the hottest and coolest months, when the weather begins getting gradually cooler, is fall or autumn. Between the coolest and hottest months, when the weather begins to warm up gradually, is spring.
Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter
Students will discover that certain things happen during specific seasons. Where someone is in the world affects the changes they will see. The lesson explains the general changes and events for each season that people in the United States experience.
The spring season usually occurs from March through May. More specifically, the beginning of spring happens around March 21 each year. Trees, plants, and flowers begin to grow and blossom. Farmers begin to plant their crops during this time. As far as the weather goes, it is often rainy and windy, making it good weather to fly a kite!
Summer begins on approximately June 21 every year. The temperatures rise and can get really hot in some areas. Humidity can also get fairly high. Crops and plants begin to grow taller. During these months, thunderstorms occur frequently. In general, schools close for the summer vacation.
September, October, and November are the autumn months, and the season generally starts on September 21. The weather cools down a little, and farmers harvest their crops. The leaves of many trees turn from green to red, orange, and yellow before falling off. Animals start to store food for the winter. School starts up again around this time as well.
Finally, students will learn about winter. Winter begins on about December 21st every year. The weather is cold, and many places receive lots of frost, snow, or freezing rain. Plants die or at least don’t bloom anymore. The new year starts on the first of January. Some activities that people enjoy during the winter months include skating, skiing, and sledding.
FOUR SEASONS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Four Seasons lesson plan includes four worksheets: two activity worksheets, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. Each of these worksheets will help reinforce students’ understanding of the lesson material in different ways. Refer to the guidelines on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each one.
NAME THE SEASONS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For this activity, students will look at eight pictures. They must guess which season the pictures represent. You may choose to add any number of pictures if you want to provide students with additional practice.
COLORING PAGES ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
This activity worksheet provides four pictures for students to color, one for each season. Remember to provide coloring pencils or some other coloring utensils, such as crayons or markers.
FOUR SEASONS PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet has two parts. The first part requires students to look at a list of dates. They will then determine which season that date represents and write it in the space next to the date. For the second section, students must look at a list of phrases and figure out which season the phrase depicts.
TILTED EARTH HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
For the homework assignment, students must draw a picture of the Earth tilted on its axis during each one of the seasons. In each box, they must list some activities that people do during that season or foods that people more often eat at those times. Students may need help from parents or older siblings for this assignment.
Students can use the graphic on the first content page for reference. It is the same graphic that the answer key uses to show what the Earth looks like during different seasons as it rotates around the sun.
Worksheet Answer Keys
The last three pages of the document are answer keys for three of the worksheets. One answer key is for the first activity and provides the correct responses for the eight pictures. The answer key for the practice worksheet provides the correct responses in red. The homework assignment also includes an answer key that displays the earth during the four seasons. Students’ responses will vary for the lists they provide. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
