There is something magical about the first signs of fall.
The mornings begin to feel a little different. The days slowly get shorter. Acorns appear on the ground, leaves begin to change, animals get busy, and almost quietly, the world around us starts becoming something new.
But our kids have to be paying attention to notice it.
And I want them to notice.
Give Kids a Reason to Look
We already track the weather in my classroom, so paying attention to what is happening outside is a natural part of our learning. In the fall, though, I like to take that noticing a little further and encourage my students to actively look for signs that the season is changing.
We read books about fall weather, what animals do during the season, and the changes we might see in the natural world. We look at real photographs, learn new fall vocabulary, and start talking about what we already know.
Then I ask a simple question: What could we look for that would tell us fall is coming?
The kids begin making a list. Changing leaves, acorns, different animal behaviors, cooler temperatures, shorter days, and other changes in nature usually make their way onto it. But we also talk about the changes we see in our communities—pumpkins appearing on porches, Halloween decorations going up, jackets coming out of closets, and different foods, holidays, and activities.
Signs of a changing season aren’t limited to nature. The things people do, wear, celebrate, and decorate can tell us something about the season, too.
Once we’ve built some background knowledge and have an idea of what we might find, I give my students a job:
Go notice.
Turn Your Hallway into a Phenology Wall
Phenology is the study of seasonal changes in plants, animals, and the world around us. It sounds like a very big science word for elementary students, but the actual practice couldn’t be more child-friendly.
We are simply teaching children to pay attention.
What’s different from last week? What’s changing? What do you see happening outside? What do you wonder?
My students choose a sign of fall that interests them and create a small drawing of it. We add their work to our fall display along with real photographs, vocabulary, and other things we’ve learned. As the season progresses, the display becomes a visual record of what we’ve been noticing together.
And I don’t keep it tucked inside my classroom.
I put it in the hallway where other children can see it.
That part matters to me because our learning gets to spill outside our classroom walls. Other students can stop to study the photographs, read the words, look at the student observations, and perhaps begin watching for some of those same changes themselves. One class’s noticing can spark another child’s curiosity.
Take the Noticing Outside
I also created a fall bingo board that gives kids another reason to actively search for signs of the season. They can look for things we’ve discussed and discover signs they may not have noticed before.
That’s important to me, especially when so much of children’s time is spent looking at screens. I want to give them a purpose for going outside and looking at the actual world around them.
Look up. Look down. Listen. Pay attention.
What’s there today that wasn’t there two weeks ago?
Then come back and tell us about it.
That’s when something wonderful starts happening. One child shares an observation and another realizes she saw it, too. Someone else has noticed something completely different. A child asks a question we hadn’t thought about before, which sends somebody else looking for the answer.
Now we have conversation.
And conversation gives us something to write about.
Follow Their Excitement
Once kids become excited about what they’re noticing, we don’t have to work very hard to manufacture engagement. We can use the excitement that’s already there and let it carry us into other areas of learning.
A changing leaf can inspire a poem. A busy squirrel can become the beginning of a creative story or a nonfiction research project. Changing temperatures can be recorded and graphed. Fall words can become part of spelling, vocabulary, or grammar work. We can keep weather journals, create fall-inspired art, listen to music, and fill our classroom libraries with beautiful read-alouds about the season.
We can write stories, poetry, and nonfiction. We can draw, measure, graph, talk, research, and wonder.
It all fits because the world doesn’t divide itself neatly into subjects. Science doesn’t have to live in one little box while writing lives in another and math waits somewhere down the hall. When children become genuinely interested in something, that interest gives us a place to connect their learning in meaningful ways.
Noticing Can Lead to Caring
There is an even bigger reason I want my students outside looking for acorns, watching leaves change, noticing cooler mornings, and wondering what the squirrels are doing.
I want them to care.
I believe that when children learn to notice the natural world, they begin to build a relationship with it. When they’ve watched it, wondered about it, talked about it, written about it, and experienced the joy of seeing it change, the natural world becomes more than scenery outside the car window.
It becomes something they know.
And when we know something, it becomes much easier to love it. When we love something, we have a reason to care for it.
Maybe a child who learns to delight in finding the first red leaf of fall becomes an adult who wants to protect the tree it came from.
That’s the long game.
We aren’t just teaching a lesson about seasons. We’re helping children become observers, thinkers, writers, scientists, and people who pay attention to the world around them.
Life is supposed to be experienced, and I want our kids to feel joy in the changing.
So this fall, give them a reason to step outside. Help them slow down long enough to really look at what is happening around them. Let them come back bubbling with something they saw, something they wondered, or something they can’t wait to tell everyone else.
Then take all that excitement and see where it leads.
Want to Try It in Your Classroom?
If you’d like a little help getting started, I’ve put together the same kinds of resources I use to get kids noticing, talking, and learning about the changing seasons.
Signs of the Seasons gives you the pieces for creating your own classroom phenology wall and helping students recognize the changes happening in the world around them.
The Four Seasons Word Wall gives students seasonal vocabulary to use as they talk and write about what they’re noticing, with a header and poem for each of the four seasons so you can change the display throughout the year.
The Four Seasons Bingo Boards let students create their own bingo boards using the seasonal word lists. They’re a simple way to keep the noticing going and also work beautifully as a literacy station, rainy-day activity, or easy activity to leave for a substitute.
Or, if you’d like to use all three throughout the year, you can find Signs of the Seasons, The Four Seasons Word Wall, and The Four Seasons Bingo Boards together in the complete Four Seasons Bundle.