What is winter?

Winter is when cold comes to stay for a while, and everything slows down.

Imagine your favorite blanket, thick, soft, and warm. Now imagine that the air around you becomes like that blanket, but instead of keeping you warm, it’s trying to take all the heat away. That's what happens in winter: the air gets colder, and it feels like a big, chilly blanket is wrapping around everything.

Think about ice cream, when it’s in the freezer, it gets really cold because the freezer takes away the heat from the ice cream. In winter, the sky acts like a giant freezer: it sends out something called cold, and that makes the ground, trees, and even your breath turn into tiny clouds of white mist.

When it gets really cold, water turns into ice, just like when you put a glass of water in the freezer. Rivers freeze over, lakes become giant skating rinks, and sometimes even the air becomes so cold that you can see your breath as it turns into little clouds.

Winter is like a chilly nap for everything on Earth, and we all get to snuggle up under our warm blankets while it sleeps!