Kindergarten Science Lesson Plan

By Rozana McFarland

Lesson Overview: Seasonal Changes

Big Ideas

Daily and seasonal changes affect all living things.

Core Competencies

Communication Thinking Personal and Social Responsibility

Creative
• Connect and engage with others (to share and Positive Personal & Social Identity
• Generating ideas
develop ideas) • Relationships and cultural contexts
• Acquire, interpret, and present information • Developing ideas
Critical Personal Awareness & Responsibility
(includes inquiries)
• Collaborate to plan, carry out, and review • Question and investigate • Self-Regulation
constructions and activities

First Peoples Principles Differentiated Instruction

Learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, and experiential. Pre-teaching of senses vocabulary

Learning involves the role of indigenous knowledge. Visual anchor chart
Learning is embedded in memory, history and story. Partner/Buddy support
Use student services time for increased support in the
classroom.
Provide sentence frame.

Curricular Competencies Content

Students will be skilled at… Students will know that…

• Make exploratory observations using their senses • Living things make changes to accommodate daily and
• Experience and interpret the local environment. seasonal cycles.
• Express and reflect on personal experiences of place. • First Peoples knowledge of seasonal changes.

Summative Assessment Formative Assessment

Artistic representation of their interpretation of the current Note student observations on nature walk.
season as a ‘moon’. Note student input to anchor chart.
Note connection students make to nature and the season.

The Learning Plan

1. Start lesson by singing a Months of the Year song or by showing the class a calendar. Discuss why we might use a
calendar? Are there certain things their families do at the same time each year? (ex: vacations, gardening, celebrations)
Why do they do them at that time? What are some things we do in summer but not in winter? Relate to previous
discussions about seasons.
2. Introduce the story “Taan’s Moons”. Explain that many First Nations people gave each moon cycle a name based on
what was available to them in nature and what was happening in nature.
3. Read the story and point out the different things Taan notices in each moon cycle.
4. Take the class outside for a nature walk. Have the students pretend they are Taan. Have the students close their eyes
and imagine they are waking up to go outside. What do they first see when they step outside? What can they hear? Are
there any smells in the air? How does the ground feel like on their paws?
5. Working with a partner, have students draw on a folded piece of paper divided in 4, one or 2 things they see, hear, smell
or feel.
6. Back in the classroom build an anchor chart divided into 4 sections labelled “I see…”, “I Hear..”, “I Smell…”, “I Feel” with
students observations of what they noticed. Students can cut their 4 sections apart and glue to the corresponding
section on the classroom chart.
7. On another day go outside and repeat the activity. Do they notice the same things? Do they notice some of the ideas
that their classmates noticed the first time?
8. Back in the classroom discuss the class anchor chart. What stands out?
9. Have students consider what they would call this month based on what they noticed in nature. On a large cut out circle,
students will draw and color or paint a representation on “their” moon, including themselves as Taan, and complete the
following sentence:

North Vancouver School District Unit Planner

 “I would call this month ______________ Moon because ____________________.”
10. Adaptations: teacher can scribe answers on premade sentence strips.
11. Alternative option: complete the same moon art using plasticene on paper plates.
12. Closure: Have students share their moons with the class.

Resources and materials:

Taan’s Moons by Alison Gear
Calendar
Anchor chart
Clipboards and observation sheet
pencils
large precut circles on white paper
coloring tools or paint or plasticine
photocopied sentence strips

Sources:

Gear, A., & Kiki, V. D. (2016). Taan’s Moons: A Haida Moon Story. New Westminster, British Columbia: McKellar & Matrin
Publishing Group.

McKellar & Martin Publishing Group, limited. (n.d.). Retrieved February 06, 2021, from
https://www.mckellermartin.com/book/taans-moons-a-haida-moon-story/

North Vancouver School District Unit Planner