While writing Snowman-Cold=Puddle, I thought about the many different ways seasons are defined, including agriculturally, by temperature, by planetary alignment, etc. Many regions of the world have rainy and dry season instead of our four North American seasons. For me, as a kid and then a teacher, summer always started on the first non-school day, regardless of what the calendar said. Or the stars. Or the crops. And as a parent of a daughter who played sports, it was always lacrosse season or cross-country season, etc.
I write lots of seasonal picture books, maybe because I grew up in Florida, where you just had a seasonal choice of hot or scorching!
I’ve been thinking lately about how kids might define seasons. Wouldn’t it be fun to talk with kids about why we name and define seasons? And what seasons they would divide their own lives into? Oooh, wouldn’t it be cool to have kids create a calendar of their own year, with their own seasons named and illustrated?
It’s unpacking season here at my home, so that’s all for today ;>)
[My Classroom Connections posts share a way to connect one of my books or poems to a classroom topic–often something timely that you might be covering in the next month or so. Please share this post if you have educator friends who might be interested–thanks!]