Wake Up, Bears! It's Spring!

Our bears have been sleeping all winter long, and we have been counting down the weeks to know when to wake them up.

Although we had been noticing signs of spring, we've also had some unpredictable weather around here- as is often the case this time of year in Utah. On the day we planned to wake them up, we had another snowstorm and decided it might be too cold for the bears. So we waited just one more day and decided that the bears were ready, even if our weather was still a bit chilly.

We made a checklist of things that the bears might like to do on their first day of Spring. The list included things like...eat, go to the bathroom, read a story, see signs of spring outside, and exercise.

The kids seemed to love having an extra buddy to play with throughout the day, and it was cute to see how the bears were included.

We decided it would also be good to prepare them for the new season, and so we taught them about spring using some of our informational books.

We also danced with the bears during music time, to help them exercise, and drew a picture of them for our journals.

Felt Season Tree

I've had some kind of "season tree" in each of my classrooms. I just love the concrete visual that kids can easily connect to, because trees are everywhere. This year I made a tree out of felt so that they could interact with each season. 

It was fun to see their interpretations... :)

The Seasons Cycle

Time is still an abstract concept for preschool aged children, especially extended periods of time like weeks, months, and years. While I don't expect my students to fully understand the ways that we measure time, I do try to build up their background knowledge and help them to develop a sense for the repetitive way that our measurements of time work.

We focus on concrete aspects of seasons as they come along, but I noticed that some of my students were confused about the order in which they occur. So we did this craft to help us visualize the cycle that seasons go through every year.

We read this book to help us think about each season individually. After every season, we would stop and add a sticker or die cut to represent that season on our paper plate wheel.

I also took the opportunity to practice beginning sounds by supporting the students as they found each season word on their own by matching the sounds and letters.

Then we used the wheels to explore how the cycle goes around and around, and pointed to each season in order as we sang this simple season song:

(Tune: Skip to My Lou)

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

4 seasons in a year!

We will keep talking about other natural cycles and patterns that happen as time goes by, with day and night coming up next.