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C's Super Seasons Adventure!

Materials Needed:

Large sheet of paper or poster board (or 4 separate sheets)
Pencils, crayons, and markers
Child-safe scissors and glue stick
Craft supplies: cotton balls (for snow), green/brown/orange paper scraps (for leaves), blue glitter (for rain/water), yellow pom-poms (for the sun)
A collection of "season-appropriate" clothing items in a box or pile (e.g., winter hat, scarf, sunglasses, sun hat, rain boots, light jacket)
Optional: A picture book about seasons (e.g., "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle or "A Year with Frog and Toad" by Arnold Lobel)
Optional: Season-themed snacks (e.g., apple slices for fall, orange segments for summer, crackers shaped like snowflakes for winter)

By the end of this lesson, C will be able to:

Identify and name the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
Describe at least one key feature of each season (e.g., "In winter, it's cold and it can snow.").
Create a visual representation (a collage) that shows the characteristics of each season.
Choose appropriate clothing for different types of seasonal weather.

Strategy: Inquiry-Based Introduction & Engagement
Activity: Start by looking out the window with C. Ask questions to spark curiosity: "What does it feel like outside today? Is it warm or chilly? What are the trees doing? Do they have leaves?"
Tell C: "Today, we're going on a Super Seasons Adventure to explore all the different times of the year! There are four of them, and each one is special."
If you have a book, read it together now to introduce the concept of the changing seasons in a story format.

Strategy: Kinesthetic Learning & Categorization
Activity: Bring out the box of mixed-up clothes. Announce, "Oh no! All of our clothes for the whole year are mixed up! Can you help me sort them for the right season?"
Call out a season, for example, "WINTER!" Have C dig through the box and pull out items one would wear in winter (scarf, hat, etc.). As C pulls out an item, ask, "Why would you wear this in the winter?" (e.g., "To keep my head warm!").
Repeat this fun, fast-paced game for all four seasons. This gets C moving and thinking critically about the connection between weather and clothing.

Strategy: Hands-On Creative Application & Sensory Exploration
Activity:
1. Take the large sheet of paper and draw lines to divide it into four equal squares. In each square, write the name of a season: SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER.
2. Go through each season one by one. Ask C, "What happens in the Spring? Flowers grow! Let's add some flowers to our Spring square!"
3. Guide C to use the craft supplies to create a mini-collage for each season:
  - Winter: Glue on cotton balls for snow. Draw bare trees.
  - Spring: Glue on green paper for grass and crumpled tissue paper for flower buds. Add blue glitter for spring showers.
  - Summer: Draw a big yellow sun or use a yellow pom-pom. Draw green leaves on the trees and people playing outside.
  - Fall: Use red, orange, and brown paper scraps to create falling leaves from the trees.
4. This activity is not about perfection; it's about C making creative choices to represent each season's identity. Encourage C to describe the choices being made.

Strategy: Reflection & Oral Communication
Activity: Hang up C's "Four Seasons Masterpiece." Ask C to be the "Seasons Expert" and give a tour of the artwork. Point to a square and ask, "Tell me about this season. What did you create here?"
Celebrate the adventure with a season-themed snack, discussing which season the snack reminds C of (e.g., "These crunchy apple slices make me think of a cool fall day!").

For Extra Support: Focus on just two contrasting seasons first (e.g., Winter and Summer). You can add the other two later or on another day. Use simple, direct prompts like, "Show me the cold season."
For an Extra Challenge: Encourage C to draw a favorite activity in each season's square on the masterpiece (e.g., building a snowman in winter, swimming in summer). Ask more complex questions like, "What happens to the animals in the winter?"
Adapting to C's Interests: If C loves animals, focus the conversation on what animals do in each season (hibernate, migrate, etc.). If C loves vehicles, talk about what kind of vehicles you might see (snowplow in winter, ice cream truck in summer).

Objective 1 (Naming Seasons): Listen for C's ability to correctly name the seasons during the clothing sort game and the art activity.
Objective 2 (Describing Seasons): Observe the explanations C gives during the clothing sort ("This hat keeps me warm because it's cold in winter") and the show-and-tell portion.
Objective 3 (Creating a Visual): The completed "Four Seasons Masterpiece" serves as a direct assessment of C's ability to translate the concepts into a creative product.
Objective 4 (Choosing Clothing): C's success and reasoning during "The Great Seasons Sort" game directly measures this objective in a fun, low-pressure way.