by Joan Inong

Created on: November 03, 2009

Primary school teachers have the responsibility and the opportunity to teach their young students about the four seasons. However, to many teachers of young students, teaching the four seasons can be rather boring and repetitive. To make your lesson plan about the four seasons a bit more interesting, why not integrate arts and crafts into it? Here are a few craft ideas that you can share with your students.

The four seasons are physically known to people; we can see how our environment changes as the season change, and we have given each season, or fragmentary time of the year, a name. Your students will already be familiar with these names and what they imply, so you don't have to feel like you have to teach the seasons all over again. Instead, make your students' relationship with the seasons (and nature, in general) interactive.

To do so, you may try a lesson plan that integrates your students' personal relationship with the seasons with the "book knowledge" that they already know. For example, ask your students to depict the activities that they can do in the spring. They can make drawings, they can create collages (using pictures or photographs), or they can create a pop-up that illustrates spring. Then, ask them what kind of knowledge they can gain from these personal depictions compared to the knowledge that they can gain from book knowledge. For example, book knowledge would give facts about the seasons. What are their "personal facts" and how do they compare with the written facts?

You can also create a picture sequence that depicts the change of seasons. Each student will need to create a sequence of pictures that includes five to ten frames. Each frame does not necessarily have to depict each season. Instead, try to encourage your students to focus on gradual change. What does spring look like when it has just become springtime? What does spring look like when springtime is waning, and turning into summer? Repeat this process for all of the other seasons. The frames can be made with colorful construction paper, and the pictures within those frames can be drawn, cut out from photographs, etc.

Once your students are finished with these projects, they may be able to draw some conclusions about their personal experiences with nature, and how they relate to their environment. This, among other things, is an important lesson for young students.

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