A seasonal table is a space we can easily create at home. Although it seems like a simple element, it serves a very interesting function: it's a place where we highlight the passage of time, the changing seasons, and the different elements that are part of this cycle. When children are small, they don't have a concept of time; they can't identify (or find it very difficult) what season it is and why we see certain colors, flowers, or a particular light in the countryside or the park.
We can give them all sorts of verbal explanations, but children don't process verbal information at this early age; besides, we don't want them to learn by imposition or obligation, by hammering concepts home. It's more interesting, humane, appropriate, magical, and more effective for children to have their own experiences: through these experiences, learning is real, authentic, and personal. Therefore, the seasonal table also becomes a place to gather the feelings of everyone who participates, so the result can be a kind of "diary" of experiences from that time of year.
If the children help create it, we also give them another opportunity to foster the sense of belonging they crave at this age: every walk in the woods or the countryside will have a memento at home, in a special place that we all respect as something worthy. It's a piece of their experience and, therefore, something they will later cherish.
A seasonal table can be made on a side shelf in the dining room, on your bedside table, on a shelf in your room… It is necessary that the place where it is put is not in use, because then it will be impractical for everyday life, since the idea is to be able to create a kind of “still life” with stones, shells, chestnuts, flowers or logs that serve to hide small fabric elves and gnomes, large branches that show the state of nature….
The elements that make up the seasonal table setting don't require a specific arrangement either. The only things to keep in mind are that they should reflect the season we want to represent and be as natural as possible: cotton or silk fabrics, wooden toys, felt or wool, fruit, fresh flowers…
Below, we've included some ideas for each season.
Autumn: yellows and reds. We can reflect the harvest season from the end of summer with ears of wheat, windmills, pumpkins, fallen leaves, chestnuts, hazelnuts…
Winter: dark blue, representing darkness and the night sky, red, and white. We can add white cotton to simulate snow, a Nativity scene, an Advent wreath… We can also place King Winter and winter gnomes, grass seeds, or unsprouted branches.
Spring: shades of green symbolize the awakening of the earth. We can add flowers, colorful eggs (see here how to decorate them), and little hares made of felt or carded wool.
Summer: intense greens and blues predominate, representing the sea, and can be accompanied by various flowers, seashells, fabric doves, sand, garden gnomes, wax bees, little birds with their nests…