Looking for ways to learn about winter, spring, summer, and fall with your kiddos? Good news: I’ve got a fun list of picture books about seasons to help you learn!
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This list is broken down into five sections: children’s books about seasons and books specifically about winter, spring, summer, and fall. Let’s take a look:
Children’s Books About Seasons
1. Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature
This lovely book looks at nature from season to season and beautifully combines stunning illustrations with poetry and facts. It’s one of our favorite nature books!
2. Drawn from Nature
Another one of our favorite nature books, Helen Ahpornsiri’s Drawn from Nature is a season-by-season look at nature. Since all of the artwork was created from natural elements like flower petals, ferns, or grass, it does a fantastic job of capturing the colors and personality of each season.
3. Sky Tree
Sky Tree begins with a tree on a hill on a nice summer day and follows that tree as each season progresses. With each beautiful painting, artist Thomas Locker shows changes in the sky, tree, and landscape as time unfolds. An added bonus, it includes discussion questions at the end of the book to help you get the most from each stage and season.
4. Crinkleroot’s Nature Almanac
My kiddos love this classic book about seasons! Crinkleroot’s Nature Almanac introduces Crinkleroot, a man “born in a tree and raised by bees” and invites children to tour the forest with him and explore the sights and sounds from season to season.
5. Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn
This lovely book from Kenard Pak shines the spotlight on the last few green days of summer and the first few breezy days of fall. From the simple text to the beautiful illustrations, this one is a great choice to add to your seasonal reading plans.
6. Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter
Just like the previous title, Goodbye Autumn, Hello Winter celebrates the transition from one season to the next. From a colorful fall walk in the woods to the simple white of the first snow, this one’s a beautiful way to explore these two seasons.
7. Watching the Seasons
Watching the Seasons is a good option if you’re looking for nonfiction children’s books about seasons. It’s ideal for K-4 and includes a glossary and suggested resources for further learning.
8. The Year at Maple Tree Farm
The Year at Maple Tree Farm describes seasonal changes on a farm through a month-by-month look.
Children’s Books About Winter
1. The Snowy Nap
This recent release from Jan Brett explores hibernation through the eyes of Hedgie, a cute hedgehog determined not to hibernate through winter. It’s just what you expect from Jan Brett: a sweet picture book that perfectly incorporates nature into the story.
2. Over and Under the Snow
Like Kate Messner’s other Over and Under books, Over and Under the Snow explores all that happens above and below the surfaces around us. This time she gives us a peek into the secret kingdom under the snow and features red squirrels, shrews, white-tailed deer, deer mice, and several other animals.
3. Animals in Winter
Animals in Winter is exactly what it sounds like: a children’s book that explores how animals deal with harsh winter conditions. We borrowed it from our library recently and found it to be really interesting and packed with great information!
4. Sizing Up Winter
We stumbled across Sizing Up Winter at the library a few weeks ago and completely loved it. It combines math with nature study by showing how math skills help compare and contrast natural parts of winter.
5. When Winter Comes
When Winter Comes is a lovely winter picture book that celebrates the first snowfall of the season and shows how flowers, animals, birds, and fish respond to the season.
6. The Story of Snow
Mark Cassino’s The Story of Snow is a great choice for exploring the science of snow. It answers questions about snow, shares detailed photographs, and includes tips for catching snowflakes.
7. In the Snow: Who’s Been Here?
We loved In the Snow! It follows siblings as they head through the woods, discover animal tracks, and try to determine exactly who’s been in the space before them.
8. Sleep Tight Farm: A Farm Prepares for Winter
Farm life isn’t my area of expertise, so I really appreciate picture books like Sleep Tight Farm. This one follows a family and all the work that goes into their preparation for the coming sleepy season for their farm.
Children’s Books About Spring
1. Spring Is Here!
How do you celebrate spring? In Spring Is Here!, homeschool mom Heidi Pross Gray shows the fun things like scenes from nature, playing outside, and garden goodies that are often a part of the renewal and rebirth that comes with spring.
2. In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb
In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb is a fun and imaginative way to explain a popular phrase about spring.
3. Spring Walk
I love the Seasonal Walks series! In Spring Walk, readers learn about a beautiful part of spring: flowers! This book highlights 24 different flowers and also teaches how to plant flowers and arrange bouquets.
4. Sorting Through Spring
Sorting Through Spring focuses on patterns, rhythms, and sorting and how they could play into the scenes of spring.
5. And Then It’s Spring
And Then It’s Spring is a cute look at a boy, his mission to plant a garden, and the patience required when waiting for spring and growth.
6. Spectacular Spring
Like Bruce Goldstone’s other books about seasons, Spectacular Spring uses captivating photographs, explanations, and craft ideas to help kids get ready to enjoy spring.
7. It’s Spring
With descriptive wording and cut-out illustrations, this one is a fun look at the animals, plants, weather, color, and feelings associated with spring.
8. A New Beginning: Celebrating the Spring Equinox
A New Beginning is a great reading choice for explaining the spring equinox. It presents the change in seasons in an understandable way and includes craft ideas and recipes for spring holidays.
Children’s Books About Summer
1. My Awesome Summer
Granted, you’ve probably never wondered about summer from the perspective of a praying mantis, but My Awesome Summer satisfies many curiosities about the life of a mantis.
2. One Hot Summer Day
Summer in the city comes to life with One Hot Summer Day. With simple text and photographs that are ideal for young learners, this one is a great way to focus on beating the summer heat with your kiddos.
3. Summer Walk
This title from the Seasonal Walks series introduces kids to 26 bug species and includes activity ideas for cloud shapes and hatching butterflies.
4. Shaping Up Summer
Like the other seasons books from the Math in Nature series, Shaping Up Summer uses math elements like patterns and shapes to highlight cicadas, ghost crabs, orb weaver spiders, and other summer superstars.
5. Summer Is Here
Another book from Heidi Pross Gray, Summer Is Here combines watercolor illustrations with nature and all the other things summer has to offer.
6. The Longest Day
Much like A New Beginning, The Longest Day explains the history and science behind the summer solstice. It also includes several fun summer craft ideas.
7. Super Summer
Super Summer is a great reading option for kids who enjoy vivid photographs. It includes lots of facts about the season and craft ideas.
8. Summer Stinks
While I generally like to share books that celebrate the beauty of nature, sometimes it’s fun to include alphabet books like Summer Stinks. After all, none of us get excited about every aspect of summer, you know, like the ants and mosquitoes that seem to pester all season long. ;)
Children’s Books About Fall
1. Fall Is Not Easy
In Fall Is Not Easy, author Marty Kelley shares a fun look at what makes fall the hardest of all the seasons.
2. Full of Fall
Full of Fall is, ahem, full of photos that capture the spirit of fall. It also includes scientific details about the changing of leaves, decomposition, and fall in different parts of the world.
3. Fall Walk
Also from the Seasonal Walks series, Fall Walk helps children identify 24 kinds of leaves and also teaches how to press leaves and do leaf rubbing projects.
4. Counting on Fall
Using a what if formula, Counting on Fall encourages kids to see opportunities to use math when enjoying the sights and scenes of autumn.
5. Why Do Leaves Change Color?
Take advantage of the natural curiosity that goes hand in hand with the colors of fall and read Why Do Leaves Change Color? with your kiddos! This book explores the why behind the changes and also includes activities and a list of locations known for spotting beautiful fall foliage.
6. Leaf Man
Lois Ehlert’s Leaf Man is another great way to celebrate the fall season through books! It’s an imaginative adventure through the landscapes of fall that concludes with an overview of several leaf types. Also worth noting, this one is especially nice for short attention spans since there are lots of beautiful fall colors without much text.
7. In November
In November isn’t necessarily a book about seasons in the natural sense, but it definitely shows how nature and fall traditions are a packaged deal. With Cynthia Rylant’s signature writing and Jill Kastner’s gorgeous illustrations, In November is a celebration of the fall season.
8. Awesome Autumn
Explore what’s so wonderful about fall with Awesome Autumn. It features vivid photographs, explanations, and craft ideas to help you explore the best that fall has to offer.
What about you? What are your favorite books about seasons? Share them with us in the comments so we can check into them. :)