Seasons Activities in Spanish {Free Printable}

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Seasons are hard words to remember in another language. Over the twenty years I have been teaching I find that even though it is only four vocabulary words they can be forgotten quickly. So I was really pleased to come across a book in Spanish that beautifully illustrates the changing of the seasons...

Las 4 Estaciones Desde el Gran Arbol shows the progression of the seasons with a tree in the forest. The animals around it come and go as the year passes. The weather changes. The plants grow and become dormant or die. And during the whole time there is an owl in the tree watching the events around him. The book has cut outs that allows you to see the animals in the tree. There are several activities that you can do as you read the book and then afterwards. Let's take a look...

For my students that can write I have them re-create the four seasons with pictures and words in Spanish. (You can download this page here.)  They can draw in the way a tree would look for each season and then label the squares with the correct word. I also have them add color and weather words related to each season in the appropriate square. Another set of vocabulary that could be added are the months in the appropriate season, but be careful with this! What if you are in the southern hemisphere? This would be a great time to discuss how summer happens in December, January, and February in South America (like in Argentina and Chile).

During the reading of the book you can point out all the animals that are throughout the story. One of the reasons that I love this book is because there are so many animals and they reoccur several times on the different pages. For younger kids, I call out the name of an animal and they can count them. For older kids this is a great time to play Spot It! (the animal version) to review the names of animals. (See here how I use Spot It! as a teaching tool AND game at the same time.)

For more advanced students that know their prepositions, you can do a drawing activity with them. Students start out with a blank piece of paper and you describe a scene with a tree in Spanish that they have to draw. Here's a sample description that could be drawn:

Hay un árbol grande con un sol brillante en el cielo. En el árbol hay dos búhos y tres ardillas. Debajo del árbol, hay una familia de zorros. Un zorro persigue una mariposa. El árbol tiene manzanas en las ramas y un nido lleno de huevos.

Finally, here are some resources that are great for working with the seasons...

Y De Pronto Es Primavera-A sweet story about waiting for spring to come.

Froggy Se Viste- Frogs are not supposed to go out in the snow and play! A story filled with winter words (especially clothing).

Un Recorrido Por Las Estaciones- Scenes from all the seasons with an emphasis on each month.

A simple puzzle for younger kids.  Actually, this concept for be great for kids if you make flashcards. Can they put the objects in the right season?

Finally, I use this vocabulary sorting activity with older students. It's a great way to familiarize them with more words that they need to put into one of the four seasons.

Teaching Concepts of Time

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I have found that teaching concepts of time can be challenging especially for younger kids. So here is a look at some ideas you can use to teach time, months, days of the week, and seasons.

A Teaching Clock is a great item to use as you explain telling time in a target language. I love this site to print out blank clocks (I white out the times underneath) to use in a listening activity. I call out a time in Spanish and they draw the hands on the clock. The site also offers clocks with hands already on them. These can be homework sheets in which students write out the time in the target language. This printable available over at Teachers pay Teachers is a great way to display time if you teach Spanish.

The months are pretty easy in Spanish as they mostly sound or are spelled like the English words. A real easy game to do with the months is to make flashcards for each month. Make a set for each student you have. I add in a few extra cards with a silver dot {see above} on them as "freebies". Lay all the cards face down on the table. NOTE: You will need a full set of year cards for each student. Students take turns picking up on card and saying the month in the target language. The trick is they must collect the months in order. So unless they have picked up January or a silver dot they must put the card back. After they have January the next goal is February and so forth. The game will start out slow, but as more cards are kept it gets easier. Normally, this game goes well if students are in small groups of no more than five.

For teaching the seasons, please check out this post of mine. It contains book suggestions for younger kids, a link to a homework sheet, and tips on helping students remember the names of the seasons.

For the days of the week I have two posts. This post is for younger kids using a famous children's book to review the days. Here is another post to use with older students or ones that have learned to read. This game is almost identical to the months game I just described above.

I also have a free printable on my site that reviews dates, seasons, and weather. You can find it here.

There are very few children's books out there that deal with concepts of time, but these are great to use if you are working with younger kids in Spanish...




Un recorrido por las estaciones incorporates the seasons, months and days of the week. I love the reference pages in the back that show the origin of the the names of the days of the week. {Did you know that many of the days of the week in Spanish refer to planets in our solar system?} It also describes the origin of the names of the months.

Chumba la Cachumba is wonderful for teaching the top of the hour to young kids. Here is my review of the book.

La oruga muy hambrienta- A classic that covers the days of the week.

Teaching Tips Galore for the Language Classroom!

Teaching Seasons in Spanish

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There are only four, but at times they are really hard to remember. The seasons can be a challenge to learn especially for younger kids. Here are a few teaching ideas for the seasons...

When I teach the seasons and if the students are old enough {junior high and up} I try to give them tips on how to memorize the names. Here are the ideas I use...

El otoño - It sounds similar to the word "autumn".

El invierno - This word actually comes from the word "to hibernate". I also teach my students that it is the "inverse" (opposite of summer). "Invierno" kind of sounds a little like "inverse" so sometimes that helps students remember.

La primavera - Spring comes from two words "prima" (We have words in English like "prime" and "premiere" which refer to "one" or "first") and "vera" (This is similar to the word "green", verde). So basically this word means "first green" which totally fits for spring!

El verano - Summer starts out with "ver" similar to "verde" the season that is all green.

One of the activities we do after I have introduced the seasons and months is to categorize the months into the four seasons. I do this with cards...I have four different pictures of trees to represent the seasons and twelve cards with the months on them. We do it for the northern hemisphere and then talk about the southern hemisphere since there are many Spanish-speaking countries in which the seasons are flipped like Argentina and Chile. Another version of this activity is for my students to categorize clothing and/or weather into the appropriate season.

For older students I have them do this page which lets them work with other vocabulary related to each season.

If you are exploring the seasons with younger kids then children's books are the way to go. Un recorrido por las estaciones covers all the seasons and months. It also has some cool information on the days of the week in the back.

Also, I have several posts on books for each season of the year...

Fall books

Winter books

Spring books 

Just recently I came across a cute book about waiting for spring called Y de pronto la primavera . Well worth the read to young kids!

Summer books

So how do you teach the seasons? I would love to hear your ideas!

Mi Calendario {Teaching Dates, Seasons, and Weather with a Free Printable}

Over my years of teaching Spanish to young kids, I have found that the calendar, seasons, and the weather can be a challenge for them to cement in their brains. It takes a lot of review, and the best way is to talk about it each day for awhile until the concept of the passing of time becomes familiar to them. I recently purchased this calendar at half price and have been using it with my students. I am seriously wondering if I bought the last one available {I know I did from the company I ordered it from}. I wanted to have a smaller take-home version for my parents to be able to use with their kids at home.

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So I created this calendar that reviews yesterday, today, tomorrow, the date, season and weather for the day. You can download it and print it using the link below. {On the screen the page looks off, but print it out and it will be fine.} I then laminated these pages using this laminator {If you are looking for a laminator to use at home this is it! Inexpensive and works really well!!}. By laminating them I can give one copy to each parent and they can have their kids use a dry erase marker to pick the date, days, etc. It can be used over and over again. {Note: Some colored dry erase markers are harder to remove. The black seems the easiest. Also, rubbing alcohol helps the cleaning process.}

So here is the file...There is also a second page with questions in Spanish that parents can use as they review the calendar each day.

Mi Calendario

Here are some more items to use with kids to teach weather and seasons...




Weather and Clothes Puzzle-With this puzzle you can go over clothes, weather, colors, and seasons.




Pink "Mi Calendario"-Similar to the one above that is no longer available.


Laminated Weather Chart in Spanish