The Seasons and Months Chart: Three Forks to Decide

Two charts sit at the calendar end of our studio catalogue: The Four Seasons, drawn spring to winter in nursery pastels, and The Months, twelve panels colour-coded to those same four seasons. Both are original vector art. Which one belongs on a given nursery wall — or whether the pair belongs there together — is not a taste question. It is three forks walked in order: the child's age, the hemisphere the family lives in, and the wall itself. This article is a flowchart written in prose. Three questions, two branches under each, and at the end a table that maps every answer combination to a single line of guidance.

Question 1: Is the Child Under Three, or Between Three and Eight?

This is the first fork because a chart is a drawing before it is a calendar. Under three, the child is reading colour blocks, shapes and the number of things on the page. Between three and eight, the child is beginning to read the labels, to count the panels, to notice that April is not December. The same wall art does two entirely different jobs across that gap, and choosing wrong means a chart that either overwhelms or bores.

The Four Seasons chart carries four large colour fields — the pastel spring, the fuller summer, the amber autumn, the cool winter. Four is a number small children can hold in one glance. The Months chart carries twelve panels, colour-coded to those same four seasons so the two work as a family. Twelve is a different order of visual load.

If Yes — the child is under three

Hang the Four Seasons chart alone. Four fields, four names, four colour identities. That is the whole reading task. A child of eighteen months will point at the yellow-green square and say a colour before they say "spring". A child of two will match the amber block on the wall to the leaves outside the window. That is the chart doing its work.

The Months chart, hung alone in the same room, gives a two-year-old twelve small panels to parse and no purchase on any of them. It is not the wrong chart for the room. It is the wrong chart for this reading age. Hold it for later, or hang it somewhere in the house the toddler visits rather than sleeps.

If No — the child is between three and eight

Now the Months chart earns its wall. Twelve is a countable set for a four-year-old; by five most children can name the month of their own birthday and want to see it drawn. The colour-coding back to the four seasons means the chart teaches two things at once: the twelve names in order, and the fact that three of them cluster into each season. That second layer is what makes it a chart and not a poster.

The Four Seasons chart still works in this age band, but its job shifts. It becomes the anchor above a reading corner or opposite the Months chart on a facing wall, where the two speak to each other. A six-year-old will use the seasons chart the way an adult uses an index: pointing to it to explain what colour July should be in the panel below.

Question 2: Northern Hemisphere Room, or Southern?

The second fork sounds pedantic and is not. Both of our calendar charts are drawn spring-to-winter in the panel order a Northern reader expects: spring first because the year begins in cold and warms. In Buenos Aires, Melbourne, Auckland or Cape Town, the same panel order tells a lie about the child's actual window. January is not winter. July is not summer. A chart is a drawing that promises to match the world outside, and this is a promise the studio takes seriously.

We do not sell a mirrored Southern edition — not because we could not draw one, but because the fix on the wall is simpler than the fix in the file. It is a hanging decision, not a re-print decision.

If Yes — Northern hemisphere

Hang either chart in the panel order as printed. Spring on the left or at the top of the arrangement, winter on the right or at the bottom. The colour progression from pastel green through summer's fuller tones into autumn amber and winter cool reads the way the year reads outside the window. Nothing to adjust.

For the Months chart specifically, this means January sits in the winter block at the start, June and July land in the summer band in the middle, and the year closes in cold. A child looking up at it in February will see February in a cool blue and check that against the coat by the door. The chart is doing its job.

If No — Southern hemisphere

Hang the same chart, but re-anchor the reading start. The simplest handling is to treat July as the visual "top" of the sequence for a Southern room: the winter panels sit where the eye first lands, and the summer panels appear where the Northern eye would expect autumn. For a wall-mounted arrangement of the Months chart, this often means starting the row at July and wrapping around, or hanging the sheet so the season-block matching the current outside weather is at eye height for the child.

We say the quiet part out loud: the chart's printed order does not change. What changes is the framing conversation the parent has once, when the chart goes up. "This is our year, but we start here" is a three-second lesson a four-year-old can hold. The colour-coding does the rest — a child in Melbourne will still see January in a summer colour and recognise that as their January, not a mistake.

The Months The print from this article · from €29.95 View the print →

Question 3: One Chart on the Wall, or the Seasons-and-Months Pair?

The third fork is a wall question, not a content question. The Four Seasons and the Months are designed as a pair — the second chart's colour coding is drawn from the first's four fields. Hung together, they teach the relationship between month and season directly, because the eye can traverse the mapping without a parent pointing to it. Hung separately, each does a smaller, cleaner job. The right answer depends on how much wall the child actually has, and at what height.

A rough sizing rule from our own hanging tests: the Four Seasons chart wants a clear area roughly the width of the crib or reading chair below it, hung so its centre line sits at the child's standing eye height by age three. The Months chart, being twelve panels, wants either a horizontal band running along a full nursery wall or a stacked three-by-four block that occupies a chair-width column. Together, the pair wants a full uninterrupted wall — no light switches breaking the composition, no furniture cutting the lower third.

If Yes — one chart

Choose by age using Question 1 and hang it alone, centred, at the child's standing eye height rather than the adult's sightline. A single well-hung chart on an otherwise quiet wall reads as intentional. Two half-committed charts on a crowded wall read as a shop display.

If the wall is small — the strip beside a changing station, the space above a low bookshelf — one chart is not a compromise, it is the correct answer. The Four Seasons at eleven-by-fourteen inches will hold that strip. The Months at a similar single-sheet size will hold a wider run above a bookshelf. Do not add the second chart for completeness. Add it only when a wall asks for it.

If No — the pair

Give the pair a whole wall. The composition we hang most often in the studio's own reference photos: the Four Seasons chart placed at the top or left as an anchor, and the Months chart arrayed below or to the right in the three-by-four grid, with roughly two inches of breathing space between every panel and four inches between the seasons chart and the months block. Eye height for the seasons chart's centre line; the months block extends downward or outward from there.

The pair is worth the wall when the child is in the three-to-eight band and reads both charts as one system. Below three, the Months chart in the pair becomes visual noise the child cannot yet parse. Above eight, both charts remain readable but the child is often past the age at which either earns wall space over a world map or an alphabet.

If You Answered Everything: The Recommendation Table

Eight combinations, one line of guidance for each. Read across your row.

Q1 (Age)	Q2 (Hemisphere)	Q3 (One or Pair)	Recommendation
Under 3	Northern	One	Hang The Four Seasons alone, centred at toddler eye height.
Under 3	Northern	Pair	Hang The Four Seasons now; hold The Months for age three.
Under 3	Southern	One	The Four Seasons alone; re-anchor the reading start to your July.
Under 3	Southern	Pair	Four Seasons now, Southern-anchored; add Months on the child's third birthday.
3 to 8	Northern	One	The Months chart alone in a three-by-four grid, printed order.
3 to 8	Northern	Pair	Full pair, Seasons as anchor, Months in a three-by-four grid below.
3 to 8	Southern	One	The Months alone, hung so your winter panel sits at first-glance height.
3 to 8	Southern	Pair	Full pair, Southern-anchored, Seasons at the top-left of the composition.

Two things the table cannot say and this closing paragraph can. The pair is not always the "better" answer even when the wall would allow it — sometimes a single chart with clear space around it teaches more than two charts crowded onto the same wall. And a chart hung too high is a decoration for the parent, not a chart for the child. When in doubt on the height, hang lower. You can always raise it a year later; you cannot un-hang the year a toddler could not reach the picture with their eyes.

The Four Seasons The print from this article · from €29.95 View the print →

FAQ

At what age does the Months chart start earning its wall over the Four Seasons alone?

Around the third birthday for most rooms. Under three, the twelve-panel load exceeds what a child can parse in a glance, and the Four Seasons chart's four colour fields do the calendar work more legibly. Between three and four the child begins counting the panels; by five most can name the month of their own birthday and use the chart to check it. Below three, the Months chart is not wrong for the house — just wrong for the sleeping wall.

Why doesn't your studio print a separate Southern-hemisphere edition of the Months chart?

Because the fix is in the hanging, not the file. The colour-coding to seasons is intrinsic to the chart — January reads in a summer colour whether the wall is in Oslo or Auckland. What changes for a Southern room is where the reading starts, and that is a three-second conversation between parent and child once, when the chart goes up. Printing a mirrored edition would double our SKU count without adding anything to what the chart actually teaches.

How much wall does the seasons-and-months pair need?

As a working minimum, a clear rectangle roughly the width of a standard nursery chair and reaching from just above chair height to just above adult shoulder height — call it three feet wide and three-and-a-half feet tall. The Four Seasons anchors the top or left; the Months arrays in a three-by-four grid with two-inch gaps between panels and four inches between the two charts. Less wall than that, and the pair reads as crowded rather than composed.

Can the two charts live on separate walls in the same room?

Yes, and often should. When one wall is broken by a window, a light switch, or a piece of furniture, splitting the pair across two clean walls reads better than forcing both onto a compromised surface. Hang the Four Seasons on the wall the child sees first on waking, and the Months on the wall opposite the reading chair. The colour-coding still links them across the room.

What hanging height works across the whole zero-to-eight range without re-hanging?

Aim for a centre line around forty inches from the floor. That sits at standing eye height for most three-to-four-year-olds, above the sightline of a crawling infant (which is fine — they read colour, not detail, at that stage) and just below adult shoulder height, which keeps the chart from reading as decor for the room rather than art for the child. If you must pick one height and never revisit it, forty inches is the least-wrong single answer.

Does the Months chart replace the need for a Four Seasons chart, or vice versa?

Neither replaces the other; they teach different things. The Four Seasons chart teaches the four-part cycle as a shape — spring becomes summer becomes autumn becomes winter, in colour. The Months chart teaches the twelve names and their grouping into those four seasons. A child who has only ever seen the Months chart often struggles to explain what a season is; a child who has only seen the Four Seasons chart cannot name the month they are in. Together the two form one full calendar reading.

Hang the pair, and hang the Months chart at the younger child's future eye height rather than their current one — around forty inches, which the older sibling can also read comfortably. The Four Seasons chart above will do the work for the younger child now, and the Months chart below grows into the wall as the toddler catches up. Shared rooms reward charts that hold across four or five years rather than charts pitched at one moment.

Where in our shop are these two charts?

Both live at /shop/ under the calendar section: The Four Seasons and The Months, listed as individual prints and as a paired set at a lower per-sheet price than buying separately. Both are original vector art, drawn in the studio's nursery pastel palette, and printed on the same paper stock as our alphabet and world map charts — which matters if the calendar charts will hang alongside those on the same wall.

From the collection