The Seasons

Damon Taylor

Preparation:

Make a series of flash cards with different things associated with each different season. For instance, for summer you could make a flash card with a surfer on it, for winter you could have a snowman card. Just make sure you put the word i.e. surfer, AND a picture on your cards. DON’T write the name of the season on the card. I make about 4 cards for each season, so 16 in total.

PROCEDURE:

1. To start the lesson I quickly draw a picture for each of the seasons on the board. If you’re not that fast a drawer maybe just make four flash cards. I draw a big sun and then get them to repeat the word ‘summer’. Next is autumn so I draw a picture of a tree with different colour leaves, then we practice ‘autumn’ and ‘fall’. For winter I draw a picture of a tree with no leaves and spring a picture of a tree with green leaves. I practice repeating these names for about 5 minutes or so, or until they’ve grasped them.

2. Next we play a ‘seasons’ game. Basically you just show the students random cards from your flashcards and they pick which season that activity is associated with. (To help them out a bit you might want to colour code your cards. For example, my summer cards were all drawn in red marker, my winter cards in blue, my spring cards in green and my autumn cards in purple.) Divide the class into four or five teams. It is actually easier to play this game if the students remain in their seats. The first row of students will all be competing against each other. You hold up a card quickly, the first student to raise his/her hand guesses, then you award points on the blackboard for a right answer or let another student answer if he/she is wrong. Next the second row competes. Then the third and you just continue on like that. You could play for about 15 minutes or so with out the students getting bored. You’ll probably find after a couple of rounds that certain students are answering all the questions. If that happens, make sure you mix up the rows every now and again. Occasionally too, just pick random students to answer even they didn’t put the hand up first. It’s important every kid is having a go.

NOTES:

I have put the estimated time at 20 minutes but I have done this as a whole lesson plan every time. Once you add on warm up games, chat time, clowning around, etc, it’s going to take closer to 40 or 45 minutes. If you wanted to you could combine this with an activity on learning the weather or another similar topic.

I also let the students ask me any questions while I’m explaining the seasons. The teacher will often want to explain the flash cards as well. For instance when I showed my snowboarding card it lead to a discussion about us actually having snow in Australia and my various snowboarding holidays (I think they all thought Australia was just a big desert).

I think it’s important to explain the difference between US English and UK/Australian English. I also explain to the students Americans generally say ‘fall’ whereas Australians and English people usually say ‘autumn’, but either is perfectly ok. They usually opt for ‘fall’ because it’s easier to say.