The Top 5 Ways to Teach Your Child About The Seasons

Teaching your children about the seasons has got to be one of the most fun and interesting ways to get your children outside to play whilst learning at the same time.

Not only will they be constantly outside in the fresh air, but they will also be spending more time with you whilst you educate them by their surroundings.

As they start to keep a journal by drawing what they see and taking pictures, their powers of observation will increase and they will eventually look forward to going out to explore instead of being stuck in front of the TV or some sort of screen.

Here are the top 5 ways to teach them about the seasons (in no particular order). There are many other ways, but we felt that these were the most important and the easiest to start with.

Keep a Science Journal

One of the most interesting ways you can teach children about the seasons is to produce a science journal for them.

You can do this by buying an A4 sized scrap book and then once a month either go into the garden or down to your local park and get them to draw what they see.

Get them to take notice of their surroundings like the leaves on the trees, the clothing that people are wearing, the jobs that people are doing like shoveling snow etc.

The cherry on top is to ask them what sort of plants and animals they see, get them to draw them and then come back and do a bit of research to find out the species and the type of plants they were.

Not only is this a great lesson on the seasons, it’s also a fun way to learn about plants and animals at the same time.

By doing all of these things combined and keeping a science journal, children will start to become a lot more observant of their surroundings and can start to compare the season changes month by month.

Taste the Seasons

If you have never taken your children to the local farmers market before, teaching about the different seasons is a great excuse to take them.

Not only can they see the many different varieties of fruits and vegetables available this time of year.

You can also have a look online to see what type of seasonal recipes go with those fruits and vegetables. In essence, “tasting the seasons.”

They can either take pictures of them or draw them in their science journal.

Not only is this providing a fantastic education, you are supporting your local farmers and the market whilst introducing your child to the wonders of eating healthy using natural ingredients.

Create a Weather Tracker

This idea should probably be at the top of the list since it is the most obvious. Buying a calendar and then physically tracking the weather is a great idea for your child to learn about the seasons.

They can start by drawing what they see and start using their imaginations like using symbols for the sun, rain, clouds, fog etc.

Then, at the end of the month, they can start counting the number of sunny, rainy (a lot if you live in the UK), or cloudy days there have been this month.

Animal Spotting

We talked previously about keeping a science journal and briefly about the animals.

Tracking the different types of animals they see with a pair of binoculars as the seasons change and watching the squirrels get ready for the winter by collecting and organising the acorns they collect would be great for their journal.

Depending on where you are the county, you could also observe the many different types of birds that are migrating south and explaining to your child why this happens.

On the other side of this education, you could also keep track and observe birds building nests in the spring.

You could explain to your child why this happens and even explain that some nests stay within the same family for years.

There are so many different ways to identify the many different animals outside. I fact, it would be a good idea to check out this Wikipedia page for more information.

Seasonable Fashion

Lastly, you can introduce the idea of monitoring the temperature outside and then have your child choose a suitable piece of clothing to go with the weather.

The weather patterns change weekly and you can start introducing your child to the many different trends like scarves, jackets, winter boots etc.

This might seem quite obvious to most adults, but for children can be quite confusing at first.

You can involve them in re-arranging cupboards, drawers and even removing clothing items to be placed into storage depending on what you do specifically in your household.

Summary

Even though these ways are educational, don’t forget, you are first introducing your child to experience how they feel about the seasons and are focusing their attention to observe their surroundings.

The science and educational part should be secondary in this exercise really.

Taking this one step further, you can also get them to invite their friends from school or the neighborhood to come and join in the party.

As you walk around nearby parks, streams and lakes you will find that child's curiosity levels should go through the roof.