The Four Seasons

We have collected and evaluated four different websites that we think would be useful in a classroom learning about the four seasons.

Teaching about the Four Seasons!

http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/seasons/seasons.htm

The concept we are teaching is learning about the four seasons. The game that I choose was a very simple game that I think is good for both younger children and ELL students. There are four different pictures that represent the different seasons. Then around each of the pictures there are the four season words; autumn, spring, winter and summer. The object of the game is to drag the correct word to the picture. The reason I think that this game is good for the students is because it shows the different pictures to represent the seasons, so the students can relate it to real life experiences or situations. Along with matching the picture and the word, if you get the correct answer it tells you how to say the word and it tells you “good job”. It reinforces the students by telling them they are doing well. If you get it wrong it doesn’t tell the students it is wrong it makes them figure it out for themselves since the word won’t stick to the word. I think this is good because it makes the students think about why isn’t it sticking and then they can change their answer. This game may be very simple but understanding the basics is important. If the student doesn’t understand the basics then they will not understand the later concepts that go along with the different seasons. This website is also very kid friendly and easy to navigate around, so the children and the parents or teacher can easily get to where they want to be.

Reviewed by Amanda Lisberger

The Seasons

http://www.wxdude.com/page19.html

This website can be used to teach students about the four seasons; spring, summer, fall, and winter. The website contains at least a page of information on each different seasons. The information ranges from teaching about the sun’s axis during each season to the different climate changes in each season. There is also information that helps teach students about weather and forecasting.This website can be useful in having students discover information on their own while exploring the website or the teacher can use it to guide the class while teaching.

One activity that can be used with this website to introduce students to the seasons would be to put the students in pairs and assign each pair a different season, so there will be groups with the same season. Have the pairs of students go on the website and research their particular season and have them write down important facts about each season that they can share with the class. This is an explorer activity that has several different benefits. Students will learn to work together in partners, students can practice finding information on the web and learning what is important to write down, and students will also be able to practice speaking in front of their peers when they have to share their findings with the class. This activity can be useful for ESL students because they will gain practice of reading English words when finding information on the web, and they will also gain practice speaking English words when they speaking in front of the class.

The website also contains lyrics and an audio recording of a song called “Circle of Our Four Seasons.” One activity that can be done with this song is by playing musical chairs with the students using this song. Label the chairs with the names of the different seasons and when the students scramble for a chair when the song stops have the students that are sitting in the chairs tell a fact about their season that is labeled on their chair. This is a good activity because it is fun for the students and gets them up and out of the desks and moving around the classroom.

Students can also use the website on their own by playing word search games and reading the “fun facts” that the website has to offer.

I think all of these activities can be geared towards first or second grade classes.

Reviewed by Rachel Roberts

The Seasons Activities

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/seasons.shtml

This website provides a lot of fun activities for learning about the four seasons. These are simple activities and would probably work best for a younger age group of beginner level ESL learner.

On this website, there is a different page for each season. Since they all offer similar activities tailored to each particular season, I will just focus on the winter page. At the top of this page, there are several tabs that lead to instructions for many different classroom art activities. Since there are several pictures, the students might be able to look through the activities and decide what they would like to make. Or, this just might be useful for teachers to find craft ideas related to each season.

Next, there is a section with ‘Winter Words in Picture Dictionary Format.’ This tab leads to a link with many different pictures of winter related items, each with the word written in English and a short definition. The other tab I like is the ‘Winter Words in Spanish: Picture Dictionary Page.’ This link shows several winter related pictures with the Spanish word and English word. This could definitely be a helpful resource for students as they learn about winter. If they come across something they are not familiar with, or need a translation, they can quickly find what they are looking for. This feature, however, seems more appropriate for an older age group that can read Spanish and/or English.

The next section of the website offers several printable activities. These all have easy to read sentences accompanied by pictures that the students can color in. These would be fun for the students to pick out what they want to do and the teacher can print them out. Since there are so many options, students will be able to find something that interests them. And, by letting the students chose which activity they want to do, the students will feel more motivated to work on their individualized project. Also, many of these activities vary in difficulty level, so it would be easy to find something appropriate for a range of learners.

The following section offers a lot of concept organizers that the teacher can print out to accompany a lesson. There are four square, bubble, web, and matching organizers. These would be great to scaffold students as they read or learn about a certain topic, demonstrating useful ways to organize ideas. There are also several worksheets with simple drawing and comparison activities. These would be great for teaching about comparison words at the same time as teaching a seasonal objective.

This website really offers several activities for students and teachers to help bolster learning about seasons. With such a wide variety of games, resources, crafts, and activities, a teacher or student can find exactly what they need for teaching and learning about seasons.

Reviewed by Cami Kinley

Seasons Resources

http://www.primarygames.com/seasons/seasons.htm

This informative website full of season resources for early childhood students comes from the Primary Games website, which has many more creative teaching topics for children. The link provided directly links to the seasons portion of the website. Provided on the page are four separate links for each season: spring, summer, fall and winter. Provided for each season link are activities relating to that season. For example for the spring activity there is a link for a spring coloring page, spring crafts, spring games, spring stationary (two options for younger and older students) and a list of spring holidays and activities for each holiday. The activities from this website would best serve early childhood students ages Pre-Kindergarten to 1^st grade. Because the activities include such skills as coloring, hands-on arts and crafts and games, young students will benefit from these activities by learning about the concept of seasons without interference from complex skills.

The seasonal activities implement visual stimulation in order to teach ideas about seasons. For example, the summer coloring sheets are pictures of children playing at a beach, sunshine, flowers, strawberries, watermelon and summer vacation. The teacher has the option of discussing events, foods, insects, weather, etc. that take place or live in the summer. If the teacher does not discuss these “summer happenings” the students will make an internal connection of what summer means to them. Another visual stimulation is the seasonal stationary, which would be appropriate for students who are capable of writing. Printed on the stationary is a boarder of the suitable season (spring- bright flowers, summer-sun, fall- leaves and winter- snowflakes). The teacher is able to create an original writing activity to produce on the stationary. For example: “Explain what winter means to you”, or “Describe your favorite summer memory”. Through this writing activity students are able to create their own definition of summer according to past experiences.

One of the many strengths of this seasonal activity website is that students are able to channel into prior knowledge and experience in order to learn about seasons. This stimulation helps the learning become meaningful to the students. Seasons is a very concrete topics in which all students should learn about; however, it is very likely that the students have prior knowledge of the subject without being aware of the previous familiarity. This is a great activity for multiliteracy classrooms because the English learners are able to visualize what each season means to them rather than struggle with language understanding and comprehension through lecturing or reading. Because the students are provided with visual examples of the seasons, possible misunderstanding and confusion that an English learner might experience will be eliminated. An idea from the reading that can be implemented in these activities is sharing time. The teacher could instruct the students to complete a coloring season activity and complete a writing assignment on the seasonal stationary explaining what that season means to them. After the activity is completed the students could share the writing activity with the class. By doing this the students will gain a broad knowledge of what seasons are and mean to others. During the sharing time the teacher would interact and use questions and comments to help children speak in a literate style. For English language learners the teacher could even implement the scaffolding practice during the share time. This activity would be extremely useful in a multiliteracy classroom, and I hope to someday have the opportunity to implement this activity in my classroom.

Reviewed by Claire Cumbie