One Tree, Four Coats — The Seasons Wheel

The child paints the same tree four times, once for each season, on a paper wheel, then uses it to talk about what the weather, plants, animals, and people do in each part of the year.

  1. Fold a large sheet of paper (or a paper plate) into quarters and draw the same bare trunk and branches in each quarter. Write one season in each section, going round in order.
  2. Start with today’s season. Look out of the window or step outside: “What does a tree look like right now? What are we wearing? What’s the weather doing?”
  3. The child dresses each tree with fingerprints or torn paper — spring blossom and small light-green leaves, summer thick dark-green leaves, autumn red, orange, and yellow leaves with some falling, winter bare branches (with cotton-wool snow if it snows where you live).
  4. For each season, add one or two small drawings around the tree: the weather, something people wear or do, and something an animal does (birds nesting, bees on flowers, squirrels gathering nuts, a hedgehog asleep).
  5. Finish by tracing the circle with a finger and saying the seasons in order, then ask, “What comes after winter?”

Variation: play Season Suitcase — pile up mittens, sunglasses, a swimsuit, rain boots, a scarf, and a sun hat, and have the child pack each one into the right quarter of the wheel, explaining why.

Requirements

  • Space: Table or floor space for painting
  • Surface: Protected table or a wipe-clean floor
  • Materials: Large paper or paper plate, brown crayon, finger paint or torn colored paper, glue, optional cotton wool
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; siblings can take a season each
  • Supervision: Light — adult draws the trunks and leads the conversation

Rationale & Objective

Describing the four seasons and their typical weather is a standard kindergarten expectation in Hirsch’s Core Knowledge sequence, the EYFS Natural World goal (which names the seasons explicitly), and NGSS K-ESS2-1 (describing weather patterns over time). Five-year-olds live very much in the present, so the season they cannot currently see is hard to hold in mind. Using one tree as a constant makes the changes easy to compare, and the wheel shape carries the key idea that seasons form a repeating cycle, not a list. Adding what animals and people do in each season links weather to living things — the beginning of understanding how organisms respond to their environment. Waldorf education builds its whole early-years rhythm around this kind of seasonal awareness, often with a nature table that changes through the year.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: names one or two seasons (usually summer and winter); links them only to personal events (“winter is Christmas”); cannot say what comes next
  • Developing: names all four seasons with the wheel as a prompt; gives one feature for most (hot, snow, leaves fall); order is shaky
  • Proficient: names the four seasons in order; gives two or more features for each, covering weather, plants, and clothing; identifies the current season
  • Advanced: explains that the cycle repeats every year; describes what animals or plants do in each season; notices real signs outdoors (“the buds are coming — it’s nearly spring”)

Safety Notes

  • Use non-toxic, washable paint and cover clothes
  • This is a low-risk activity; the main caution is not to treat a muddled order as failure — a firm grasp of the yearly cycle typically settles between ages 5 and 7
  • If the child shows persistent difficulty with any sequencing or time words (before, after, yesterday, tomorrow) across many situations, mention it to a teacher or pediatrician

Hints

  • Playfulness: make a cardboard arrow and fix it to the centre with a split pin so the child can spin to a season and act it out — shivering, splashing in puddles, fanning themselves
  • Sustain interest: hang the wheel up and move a peg or arrow when the season really changes. Keep a small shelf or tray for seasonal finds — conkers, blossom, a feather, a pine cone
  • Common mistake: teaching only the picture-book version. If you live where winters are mild, or where the year has a wet and a dry season, paint what your own year really looks like and mention that seasons are different in other places
  • Limited space: skip the paint — sort a handful of clothes or family photos into four piles by season on the sofa
  • Cross-domain: fingerprint counting and color mixing (math and art); family birthdays placed on the wheel (time concepts); choosing clothes for the weather (self-care); season songs and poems (language)
  • Progression: today’s season only → two opposite seasons (summer and winter) → all four in order → add what animals and plants do → add months or family events to the wheel

Sources

  • E.D. Hirsch — What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know (Science — seasons and weather)
  • UK EYFS — Understanding the World, The Natural World ELG (processes and changes including the seasons)
  • NGSS K-ESS2-1 — use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time
  • Waldorf early childhood education — seasonal rhythm and the nature table
  • Montessori Cultural curriculum — seasons and calendar work
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD Objective 27 (demonstrates knowledge of Earth’s environment)