Seasons of the Year Educational Children's Books
Kids' Picture Books Teach About Winter, Summer, Fall, Spring
Feb 25, 2009
Information that may bore children when parceled out as a series of dry facts becomes fun and memorable when packaged in a lively children's picture book. The educational children's books reviewed and recommended in this article offer various kinds of information about the four seasons of the year in creative and appealing ways.
Picture Books for Children About How Plants and Animals Change in Each Season
Use Four Seasons Make a Year by Anne Rockwell [Walker Books, 2004] to show children how plants change over the course of a year. As the cycle of the year progresses, the little girl narrator explains the changes she witnesses on her northwestern farm. She describes both general changes in nature and her activities and how a sunflower seed that she has planted follows its own specific cycle of growth.
For information about how animals change month to month throughout each month of the year, check out The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen [Aladdin Paperbacks, 2001]. This lovely classic combines the Provensens' signature flat and simple yet gorgeously colored illustrations with specific factual information and observations both poetic and dry about what human and animal life is like on a farm during each particular month of the year.
Nonfiction Science Kids' Picture Books That Explain the Reasons for Seasons
Parents and teachers searching for educational children's books that contain clear scientific information about the four seasons have several appealing options.
Each spread in Our Seasons by Grace Lin and Ranida T. McKneally [Charlesbridge, 2006] pairs a charming haiku about an experience at a certain time of year with a block of question-and-answer text that explains the science behind some aspect of the experience, such as "Why do leaves change color?" in the fall. Large, gouache illustrations full of rich colors accompany each haiku. The book opens and concludes with straight scientific information about why we have seasons and what seasons people in various locations around the world have.
The Reasons for Seasons by Gail Gibbons [Holiday House, 1995] mixes simple explanations of scientific concepts like hemispheres, equinoxes, and how the Earth's revolutions around the sun cause the seasons with plain descriptions of things people and animals do during each season. This book makes a good introduction to the idea that the seasons repeat over and over and are caused by the interaction between Earth and the sun.
Nonfiction Math Children's Picture Book Relating to the Seasons
Math for All Seasons by Greg Tang [Scholastic Press, 2002] playfully combines settings from different times of the year with fun math puzzles meant to teach problem-solving to children ages 5 to 8. Kids must read riddles, then look at rows and groups of objects and figure out strategies for how to group the objects to make adding up their total number easier. Each season is represented by appealing, brightly colored computer-generated illustrations of seasonal sights and objects, such as spring Easter eggs, summer ice cream cones, autumn Halloween Jack o' lanterns, or winter snowflakes.
Read aloud to children by a parent or used by a teacher as part of a lesson, collected in a reading center or shelved in a family library, the books reviewed above will all provide kids with a basic grounding in the facts behind why Earth has seasons and what happens during each season.
For recommendations for additional fun picture books about the seasons, check out some other seasons of the year kids' picture books.
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