Sensational Seasons is a unit that will teach your students about the four seasons through, science, math, language arts and the arts. The unit is a hands-on approach to have your students experience each season in a unique way.

Students will:

1. Identify fall, winter, spring, and summer apple trees
2. Label the fall, winter, spring, and summer apple trees
3. Create a seasonal apple tree display board
4. Identify pictures of winter and summer
5. Compare and contrast winter and summer
6. Sort and classify winter and summer clothing
7. Participate in guided writing.
8. Identify pictures of fall and spring
9. Compare and contrast fall and spring
10. Engage in a color science experiment
11. Identify the different characteristics of a flower
12. Participate in independent writing

Lesson 1: Exploring Seasonal Apple Trees

Lesson 2: Winter vs. Summer

Lesson 3: Fall vs. Spring Lesson Plan

Culminating Activity

Choose four famous works of art that depict each season. These are some of the portraits that we used in my class:

Fall: The Cider Mill by William Sydney Mount
Winter: The Road-Winter by Currier and Ives
Spring: Sunday on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat
Summer: The Endless Summer by John Van Hamersveld

Choose students to portray the people in the portraits. Have the students freeze in the pose that you see in the painting. Then ring a bell and have them come to life and sing a song or recite a poem or do a dance. We begin the show by showing a slide of the artwork on a screen. Then as the screen lifts up you see the students on stage in the exact pose that you just have seen on the screen. (It is an interpretation of a very well known art show called Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, California that was adapted for the stage by Marci Ruiz and Marcia David.)

Fall
For the fall skit the students come out of their pose and sing:

Oh the leaves turn red and yellow in the fall,
Oh the leaves turn red and yellow in the fall.
Oh the leaves turn red and yellow oh the leaves turn red and yellow oh the leaves turn red and yellow in the fall! Yee haw!!!

Then the students go back into their pose and the screen goes down.

Winter
For the winter skit the students come out of their pose and sing: "Walking In a Winter Wonderland." Then the after the song the students go back into their pose and the screen goes down.

Spring
For the spring skit the students come out of their pose and sing "The Teddy Bear Picnic." Then the students go back into their pose and the screen goes down.

Summer
For the summer skit the students come out of their pose and dance sing "Surfin' USA" by the Beach Boys. After the song, the students go back into their poses and the screen goes down.

Supporting Books

Sensational Seasons Booklist