By nature, most young children like to sort things. You may have noticed your child lining up blocks, toy cars, or putting dolls all in one place, and teddy bears in another. This sorting activity for preschoolers takes that desire to sort and uses it to learn about seasons. This activity seems very bland, but I have yet to have a class you didn’t love it.
Paper Bag Season Sorting
- Gather your materials. You will need some old magazines or catalogs. Clothing catalogs work great for this. Scissors, crayons or markers, some construction or card stock paper, and tape or glue. You will need a paper bag for each season you are going to include. I suggest for children just learning about seasons to stick to Winter and Summer only.
- Steps 3 and 4 can be done ahead of time or by a parent while the child is doing step 5.
- Find pictures in your magazines or catalogs that show people in warm or cold weather clothing. In my experience it is easier for everyone if you do this step a head of time, or even just help things along by ripping out these pages and have the child do the cutting.
- Once you have found enough pictures of both seasons, glue or tape them to the paper and cut them out.
- Decorate the two (or more) paper bags with scenes or things that represent that season. I drew pictures. Label each bag with the name of the season.
- Sort your pictures into each bag. While sorting ask your child questions, and especially if they are putting something you think should go into Summer into the Winter bag, they may have a very good explanation to put you in your place!
**The subject of this activity can easily be changed to fit any theme, and length of activity lengthened by adding more pictures to sort. This is a great circle time activity for preschool and after playing it as a class you can put it on the shelf for free time and the students will enjoy re-playing it. **
Song!
Hurry, Hurry, Seasons Changing
Hurry, Hurry, Spring is coming
See all the flowers blooming
Hurry , Hurry Spring is coming
Baby animals everywhere!
Hurry, Hurry, Summer’s coming
See how the sun is shining,
Hurry , Hurry, Summer’s coming
At the beach and at the pool!
Hurry, Hurry, Autumn’s coming
See all the leaves falling,
Hurry, Hurry, Autumn’s coming
Grab a sweater it’s getting cold!
Hurry, Hurry, Winter’s coming
See all the snow falling,
Hurry, Hurry Winter’s coming
Bundle up like a polar bear!
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Want more preschool lesson plans and circle time activities? Our Build Preschool Thematic Units have tons of great ideas!
momof3 says
What an awesome idea about cutting pictures out of magazines and then putting them in the right bags. I just said over the weekend that I had to many magazines and was going to get rid of them. Good thing I didn’t. Thanks again, what an awesome web site!
Nikki