Four Seasons of a Tree Preschool Art Activity

Everyone has their favorite season (Summer, anyone?!) However, there is pleasure, joy and love to be found in every season. This four seasons preschool art activity is perfect for teaching the changes in seasons. It is literally crammed with sensory learning for young kiddos. In one project your child will draw, dip, dab, clench, cut, glue and get creative!

Four seasons of a tree preschool art activity offers a variety of sensory experiences for young learners. It’s also an engaging way to delve into the science of trees. Get out your craft supplies, roll up your sleeves, and have some fun with four seasons arts and crafts for preschool. You won’t be sorry you added this to your lesson plans.

My Tree and Me: A Book of Seasons (Growing Hearts)

 

Benefits of Art Integration in the Curriculum

Teaching the four seasons to preschoolers MUST go beyond conversations and picture books. Art projects can really bring concepts to life while providing important sensory and fine motor experiences for preschoolers.

Benefits of integrating art into a four seasons preschool theme include:

• Fine motor exercise (grasping, brushing, dipping, cutting)
• Cognitive ability (critical thinking/planning, cause/effect, patterning)
• Language (vocabulary and sentence structure)
• Math (size, shape, comparing, counting, spatial awareness)
• Creativity and focusing on a PROCESS rather than an OUTCOME

How to Make the Preschool Four Seasons of a Tree Art Activity

Materials:

• Cardboard, poster board, foam board, or any other large/long craft paper
• Scissors
• Empty toilet paper or paper towel roll
• Paper plate
• Cotton balls
• Cotton swabs
• Tissue paper (red, orange, green, yellow-cut into 1 inch squares)
• Black or brown permanent marker
• Clothespin
• Glue stick
• Craft acrylic paint (brown, dark green, light green, pink, purple, orange,yellow, brown)

To Make:

1. Use the marker to draw the trunks only of four trees. Space them evenly on your cardboard/paper.
2. Using scissors, cut the toilet paper roll in half. Press it flat to create a marquise shape. Add brown and green paint to the paper plate. Dip one end of the roll into the brown paint and press multiple shapes onto the first trunk and above it to create a bare Winter tree. You can also add green/brown leaves at the bottom of the trunk.
3. Create a Spring tree on the next trunk. Add more color to the plate with pink, purple, orange, etc. Use a cotton swab to dip into the various colors and dab onto the tree to create a tree laden with blossoms and covered with green buds.
4. The third tree represents green buds and a full bloom in Summer. It should be ripe and drooping with colors of your choice. Pinch a cotton ball with the clothespin and dip into various paint colors to create a beautiful, full Summer tree.
5. Finally, the fourth tree represents Fall. Use the glue stick and tissue paper squares to show vibrant leaves drifting to the ground while leaving some of them on the branches.

Extension Ideas

Plus, there are many different ways to delve into a four season preschool theme. Along with four seasons preschool crafts, you can include picture books (both fiction and non-fiction), songs and poems, math activities, nature walks and science experiments.

You could even complete this project one season at a time, beginning with Fall and putting it all together at the end of the school year. That lends itself to talking about and experiencing each season as it is occurring. Use one piece of construction paper for each season, then attach the squares when all four seasons are complete.

Remember, four seasons activities for preschool should be as hands-on as possible. Consider nature walks where you use the five senses to experience everything from smells so sweet to sounds and tastes.

It’s also important to get preschoolers talking! Consider thoughtful questions that don’t necessarily have a right or wrong answer.

What if there was only one season? Which one would you pick? Why?

Does the promise of Spring make Winter easier for you? Why/why not?

If that tree was a person what would it say during Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall?

Is a tree that is twisted and bent still beautiful to you? Why/why not?