3 ms·
I'm 38 but only noticed a few years ago that calendars say "Winter begins". I feel like as a kid it was "Winter solstice." I always assumed the solstice was the
by pjungwir 11y ago
I'm 38 but only noticed a few years ago that calendars say "Winter begins". I feel like as a kid it was "Winter solstice." I always assumed the solstice was the midpoint of winter, not the beginning. Doesn't that make more sense? Anyway, my sense of the seasons is more like children's books: autumn is when the leaves change, winter is when it snows, spring is when the flowers bud, summer is hot. Sounds like meteorological winter still doesn't put the solstice at the middle of winter, but it would be closer.
- untothebreach 11y agoYea, I've been thinking about that too. A few weeks ago my 3 year old saw it snowing out and said, "Mom and Dad, it's winter!" A visitor we had over said something to the effect of, "well, actually it's not winter YET, that's not till later in the month." The 3 year old was very confused, as he could clearly see it was winter by the snow outside. I much prefer the 3 year old's simple method for knowing when winter was here.
- jonathonf 11y agoIt always saddens me when I hear of adults closing off conversations with children (and in this case in such a dismissive manner). Adults really should realise that they are constantly teaching children, or rather, children are constantly learning from them. What did this exchange teach? A better approach is to keep things open - for example, respond with something along the lines of "how do you know?" (or even just "why?"). The you get to talk about seasons and how they relate to temperature and weather, leaves on the trees, snowmen...