Exploring the Seasons in Children's House

Now that the weather is so much cooler, it is wonderful to observe how the Kara children are tuning into their senses, especially as they settle into the room each morning. It is so interesting to listen to all their curious discussion, taking turns to describe the textures of each other’s jumpers and some children also recall lessons with the Fabric Matching job too.

During the Kara whole-group meeting, we talk about the Western calendar seasons. We name them and talk in detail about each season being summer, autumn, winter and spring. Some children continued this interest and focused on a deeper level with the class seasons job.

We then expanded our insight about the different seasons in a hands-on way, and as building blocks in relevance to the Earth’s rotation, the Sun and how seasons occur around the globe based on time and positioning.

For this exploration, we used a torch to highlight the hypothesis of day and night. Additionally, for this demonstration, we went through ideas as to ‘why’ some places were dark on the globe, namely those countries/continents experiencing night and the season being winter or almost. The parts of the globe that were lit up and brighter meant that it was summer and the months were warmer. I also talked to the Kara children using words like the equator, Sun, the northern and southern hemispheres. This whole learning is a language-rich exploration pertaining to the weather and changing seasons around the world, and links to the Montessori Physical Sciences, Culture and History curriculums.

By Grace, Lin, and Simmi