Grade+1

__**Rationale:**__ The rationale for this portion of the resource package is to have students examine the daily and seasonal changes that occur in the environment. This will allow for students to have a more clear understanding of how and why people and animals make adaptations as the seasons change. Also students will be able to clearly define which season is occurring by the physical changes that are occurring in nature. It is also important for students to understand the other perspectives of how and why seasons occur by looking at First Nation myths and the beliefs that they have about the seasons. By exploring the daily and seasonal changes that are occurring students can begin to take a closer look at particular changes such as how these changes effect the world around them. This unit can be connected later on to other units in which students will be given the chance to examine things in the environment such as the air and water.

__**Curriculum Objectives**__

Students will be able to describe each season: 1. By the activities that people do during each season. 2. Physical changes that occur through out nature. 3. How animals change and adapt to each season.

Students will be able to analyze each season: 1. By reading/listening to stories about the occurrence of each seasons from different cultures. 2. What adaptations animals have in each season. 3. How people change and adapt to each new season.

Students will be able to: 1. Make predictions about daily changes in the seasons.

__**Lesson 1: First Nation Perspectives about the seasons**__ __**Materials:**__ Acoma Legend: "Creation of Summer and Winter" []

Acoma Legend: "Blue Corn Maiden and the coming of winter" []

Cherokee Legend: "Why Trees lose their leaves" []

Dene: "Creation of the Seasons" [] __**Engage:**__ __**Explore:**__ __**Explain:**__ __**Evaluate:**__
 * Discuss with the students their knowledge about the seasons and their beliefs about how and why the seasons occur. This will set the lesson up for discussing about the daily and seasonal changes. A way to get the students to become engaged is having them create a brainstormed list of their beliefs.
 * As a class, read each of the myths out loud. During each the reading, ask the students questions about what they think will happen next, do they believe that the myth clearly explains how the season occurred.
 * Discuss with the students how the First Nation people believed that there were many forces in the world and that they all influence nature. Also discuss with the students if this has changed their beliefs about the seasons.
 * __Elaborate:__**
 * Explain to the students about how weather changes occur by the changes on the earth. Make sure to emphasize to students that not all places in the world experience the same seasons and that some countries actually do not see many changes to the weather but have different changes to the temperature or the amount of sun light that occurs in a day.
 * For the evaluation component of this lesson, students will be given the task to retell one of the myths of their choice. They will be allowed to simply retell the story verbally with or without puppets or props. Using a rubric, students will be marked on speaking skills, creativity and flow of the story (beginning, middle and end).

__**Materials:**__ 1) Byron Through the Seasons 2)
 * __Lesson 2: How do the seasons affect people?__**

__**Engage:**__ OR __**Evaluate:**__
 * Read the story, “Byron through the Seasons” as a class. Discuss with the students how the main character and his family work together and the changes that they make with each season.
 * Read the story, “Changing seasons”, as a class. Discuss with the students what some of the activities that the main character does in the story. Also discuss how the changing seasons affects the activities that we do and the clothing that we wear in each season.
 * __Explore:__**
 * Pair the students up into groups of three’s and have them sort out a variety of pictures and sentence strips about the different changes, activities and clothing choices people make in the season.
 * __Explain:__**
 * Have the students explain how and why they sorted out the picture and word sentences. Ask the students what clues and prior knowledge did they use to do this.
 * __Elaborate:__**
 * As a class discuss what changes they and their family do to get ready for the changing seasons. Have students provide examples from their own lives and experiences.
 * During the activity and class discussion, discuss with the students the choices they make and if they can provide examples from their own personal experience. For the evaluation component, anecdotal records will be used to keep track of conversations with students and their knowledge about the seasons.

__**Lesson 3: How do the seasons affect animals?**__ __**Materials:**__ 1) Lap top 2) Projector 3) Online Story 4) 8.5 X 11 sheets of paper 5) Markers 6) Pencils 7) Crayons

__**Engage:**__ __**Explore:**__ __**Explain:**__ __**Elaborate:**__ __**Evaluate:**__
 * Read the story “Lewis Cardinal’s First Winter” by Amy Crane Johnson.
 * Discuss with the students what each animal did to get ready for the changing season. Provide explanations about what hibernation, dormancy, migration and adaptation means.
 * As a class, create a chart on the white board with the titles hibernation, dormancy, migration and adaptation. Have the students recall what each animal in the book did to get ready for the seasonal change. Discuss with the students why they choose to place the animal in a particular column.
 * Have students take books out of the library and use specifically chosen websites to explore and find information about other types of animals and what they do to get ready for seasonal changes.
 * Have the students create a poster of an animal of their choice with at least one sentence describing what the animal does to get ready for a seasonal change. Students will be marked based on if they have all the components and correct information about their animal.

__**Lesson 4: Physical changes to the environment.**__ __**Materials**__ 1) Paint 2) Paper 3) Journal papers 4) Story book- “Month by Month”

__**Engage:**__ __**Explore:**__ __**Elaborate:**__ __**Lesson 5: Examining the changes of each season.**__ __**Materials:**__ 1) Chart paper 2) Thermometers __**Engage:**__ __**Explore:**__ __**Explain:**__ __**Elaborate:**__ __**Evaluate:**__
 * Students will read the story, “Month by Month” as a class.
 * Students will brainstorm as a class the changes that occur in each season. They will need to write down descriptive words or phrases about what is occurring in nature.
 * __Explain:__**
 * Students will create paint a picture of a particular season and what the environment looks like
 * Students will write out a journal entry explaining their picture and what changes they have painted. Make sure to emphasize to students to include any physical changes that they may see in the outdoors.
 * __Evaluate:__**
 * Student's will be evaluated on the picture that they painted depicting a particular season and the physical changes that are occurring. Also on the journal entry that they have wrote that will accompany describing the changes that they painted about.
 * Discuss with the students what season is occurring at the moment. Ask them what changes are occurring outside that give them a clue about the season. Explain to the students that they are going to be charting the daily changes.
 * As a class, go outside onto the playground and allow them to explore the area. Ask the students to pay close attention to the trees and plants and keep an eye out for any animals.Also as a class, read the temperature outside using a thermometer (previous discussion before using a thermometer will be needed to explain how it is used, what it is used for and how to read the thermometer).
 * Once the students have returned back inside have them discuss what changes they noticed. Have the students write and/or draw pictures showing what they saw outside. It is important to emphasize to students that all changes are important. Also have the students note the temperature in their chart.
 * Have the students repeat this exercise over the course of a few days. Allow for students to compare the data they have collected over the few days and compare each day. Discuss with the students what changes occurred over the days and what clues does this give them that the there were daily changes.
 * Students will be marked by a checklist to make sure that they have filled all of the components needed for the chart. Further steps can be taken to have the students write journal entry explaining what changes they noticed and explain how these changes are linked to the particular season at the time.

1. Shields, C.D (1998). __Month by Month a Year Goes Round__. Dutton Children’s Books, New York. This book goes through each month and gives a rhyme about each month and what is going on during the month. This book provides a basic introduction to the twelve months and the changes in the season that occur in each month.
 * __ Science Resource Book List: __**

2. Children of La Loche and Friends (1990). __Byron through the Seasons__. Fifth House Publishers. Saskatoon. This story book is about a young Dene boy’s grandfather telling his class about growing up. The boy’s grandfather describes what his family does as the seasons change. This allows for students to look at different families and how they live through out the seasons.

3. Moore, Y. & Bannatyne-Cugnet, J (1994). __A Prairie Year__. Tundra Books. Montreal. This book can be used as a way to introducing another perspective of farm life in Saskatchewan. Each picture has a simple sentence which is supplemented by a more detailed story about the picture. This story can be a way to introduce families’ lives to the students while relating the experiences to their own. Each month has a picture and a story which can be used for individual lessons.

4. Fuchs, D.M (1995). __A Bear for All Seasons__. Henry Holt and Co. New York. This story is about two characters, bear and fox. Bear is getting ready for his winter sleep when fox shows up. The two friends share a conversation about the activities that they do in each season. The animals discuss the things that they enjoy the most. This book allows for students to discuss the different activities that they enjoy in each of the seasons.

5. MacKinnon, D (1995). __The Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter__. Barron’s Educational Series Inc. Great Britain. This book provides descriptions about each of the four seasons and provides real life pictures of children in each of the seasons. Also in the description of each season, there are short stories about what each picture is about. Each story talks about the animals in the season, changes that are going on in nature, changes in clothing and games and activities that you can do in each season.

6. White Carlstrom, N (1993). __How Does the Wind Walk?.__ MacMillan Publishing Co. New York. This story is about the different season from the perception of the wind. Each season has a different description about what the wind is like in each season. It gives a brief description about the wind and other changes that are occurring in the season. This book has very simple pictures.

7. Tafuri, N (1999). __Snowy Flowy Blowy__. Scholastic Press. New York. This book only has a different descriptive word for each of the twelve months. On each page there is a different word for the month and the month printed on the page. There are large pictures for each page with lots of details showing the changes in each month and how the season has started to change.

8. Johnson, A.C. __Lewis Cardinal's First Winter.__ Raven Tree Press. This story is about Lewis Cardinal. He is a cardinal who is confused as his woodland friends get ready for winter. One of Lewis friends, a cradinal explains hibernation and migration, leading Lewis to understand the process of change and friendship. This book shows a variety of animals and how they adapt and change during the winter season.