116 Fun Facts About Fall Trivia for Kids

What is another name for the season called fall?

North Americans say fall; most other English speakers say autumn.

Fall comes between which two seasons?

Days get shorter and nights get longer as the season goes on.

In which month does fall begin in the Northern Hemisphere?

Fall begins in September in the Northern Hemisphere: forecasters start it on September 1, and the astronomical season starts at the equinox around September 22. South of the equator it begins in March.

Which three months do weather forecasters call fall in the Northern Hemisphere?

Forecasters define fall as September, October and November in the Northern Hemisphere, three whole months that are easy to compare year to year. South of the equator the same block is March, April and May.

What happens to the days as fall goes on?

This carries on until the shortest day, the winter solstice in December.

Which US holiday is often treated as the informal end of summer and start of fall?

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is widely treated as the unofficial end of summer in the United States, the weekend when pools close and school is back.

The season's other name comes from which old language?

Autumn comes from the Latin word autumnus, which reached English through Old French in the 1300s; some scholars think the Latin word itself was borrowed from Etruscan.

What is the day in early fall when day and night are about the same length called?

The equinox, from Latin for 'equal night', falls between September 21 and 24, when the Sun is directly above the equator and day and night are nearly equal everywhere.

On the day in fall when day and night are equal, where does the Sun rise and set?

On the equinox the Sun rises due east and sets due west everywhere on Earth; after the September equinox it rises and sets a little further south each day.

When it is fall in the Northern Hemisphere, what season starts in the Southern Hemisphere?

The September equinox starts spring in the Southern Hemisphere, so Australia and South Africa warm up while the north cools down; the same moment marks two different seasons.

Which colours do leaves turn in the fall?

Leaves turn yellow, orange, red and brown as their green fades in fall; New England's display is so famous that millions of visitors come to see it every October.

What is the green stuff in leaves called?

It sits inside tiny parts of the leaf called chloroplasts.

Why do leaves lose their summer colour in the fall?

Red colours come from new pigments called anthocyanins.

Where do the yellow colours in fall leaves come from?

The yellows come from carotenoid pigments hidden in the leaf all summer; they are masked by green chlorophyll until it breaks down in fall.

What does the green pigment in a leaf do for the plant?

Chlorophyll catches sunlight to make food: in photosynthesis the leaf uses that light energy to turn water and a gas from the air into sugar.

What is the name for tourists who travel to look at colourful fall leaves?

Leaf peepers is the nickname for tourists who travel to see fall colours; leaf-peeping season is big business for New England and eastern Canada every October.

What word describes trees that drop their leaves every year?

It means falling off at maturity; baby teeth are called deciduous teeth for the same reason.

What is the opposite of a tree that drops all its leaves each year?

Evergreens do drop leaves, just not all at once.

What is the name for all the leaves on a tree taken together?

Foliage means all the leaves of a plant or tree taken together; it comes from the Latin folium, meaning leaf, which is why we talk about autumn foliage.

What do leaves take in from the air to make food?

Leaves take in carbon dioxide through tiny pores called stomata and use it, with water and sunlight, to make sugar, giving oxygen back out.

What colour are most pumpkins?

Most pumpkins are orange because their skin is full of carotene, the same pigment that colours carrots; white, green and blue-grey pumpkins exist too.

A pumpkin is a type of what?

A pumpkin is a squash, a member of the gourd family along with zucchini and cucumbers; botanically its fruit is a kind of berry called a pepo.

How much did the record-setting heaviest pumpkin of 2023 weigh?

About 2,749 pounds, or 1,246.9 kg, is the record set in October 2023, more than a small car.

Which little creatures usually pollinate pumpkin flowers?

Bees do the job: squash bees and honeybees carry pollen from the male flowers to the female ones, and a pumpkin plant grows both kinds of flower.

What is inside a pumpkin's thick shell?

Inside the shell a pumpkin is full of seeds and stringy pulp; the seeds can be roasted and eaten, and one pumpkin can hold hundreds of them.

What is a carved pumpkin with a face called?

A carved pumpkin with a face is a jack-o'-lantern; lit by a candle inside, it is set out as a Halloween decoration, a custom that came to America with Irish immigrants.

Before pumpkins, what vegetable did people in Ireland carve into lanterns?

In Ireland people hollowed out turnips into lanterns; immigrants brought the custom to America, where the native pumpkin was bigger and easier to carve.

The carved pumpkin lantern is linked to an Irish legend about a man called what?

The legend tells of Stingy Jack, who tricked the Devil and was doomed to roam the Earth with only a burning coal inside a hollowed turnip to light his way.

Which part of a pumpkin plant grows into the pumpkin itself?

A pumpkin grows from the base of a female flower: after bees pollinate it, the swollen part behind the petals grows into the fruit.

On what date is Halloween?

Halloween is October 31, the evening before All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day) on November 1; the name is short for All Hallows' Eve.

Which two countries did most Halloween customs come to America from?

Their immigrants brought the customs over in the 19th century.

What do children say at the door on Halloween night to ask for candy?

The 'trick' is a playful threat if no treat is given.

What did trick-or-treating grow out of in Scotland and Ireland?

Guising, short for disguising, was the Scottish and Irish custom of children going door to door in costume and performing a song or rhyme in exchange for food or coins.

How does a house often show it has candy for trick-or-treaters?

A porch light left on is the usual signal that a house is handing out candy, and a dark porch means skip it; some people just leave a bowl out on the honour system.

In Mexico, children ask for a small sugar or chocolate what?

The custom is called calaverita, meaning little skull.

Which three colours are on a piece of candy corn?

Candy corn is striped yellow, orange and white; the wide yellow end is meant to look like a kernel of corn.

What was candy corn's original name?

Candy corn was first sold as Chicken Feed, with a rooster on the box, by the Goelitz Confectionery Company from 1898; George Renninger of Wunderle is credited with inventing it in the 1880s.

Which animal is an old sign of bad luck when it crosses your path?

A black cat crossing your path is an old sign of bad luck; in medieval Europe black cats were linked to witches, which is why they turn up in Halloween decorations.

What is the British name for the red sugar-coated fruit on a stick sold at fall fairs?

In Britain a toffee apple is an apple dipped in hard boiled sugar, a fairground and Bonfire Night treat; Americans call the same thing a candy apple.

Who invented the red sugar-coated apple in 1908?

William Kolb, a sweet-maker in Newark, New Jersey, dipped apples into the red cinnamon candy he was making for Christmas in 1908 and sold them from his shop window.

What is an apple on a stick dipped in before being rolled in nuts to make a fall treat?

Caramel apples are dipped in hot sticky caramel made from sugar, butter and cream; once the caramel sets, some are rolled in chopped nuts.

Roughly how many kinds of apples are there?

There are roughly 7,500 kinds of apple grown around the world; some are for eating fresh, some for cooking and some for cider.

Where did apple trees first come from?

Apples come from Central Asia: their wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, grows in the Tian Shan mountains of Kazakhstan, whose largest city, Almaty, has a name linked to apples.

How many seed chambers does an apple usually have?

An apple usually has five seed chambers, called carpels; cut it across the middle and they form a five-pointed star.

The old English word 'apple' originally meant what?

In Old English 'aeppel' meant any fruit, which is why older writers called a banana an 'apple of paradise' and why the unnamed fruit in Eden became an apple.

What do Americans mean when they order apple pie 'à la mode'?

À la mode means served with a scoop of ice cream, usually vanilla; the phrase is French for 'in the fashion'. An old English habit puts a slice of sharp cheddar on top instead.

What was Johnny Appleseed's real name?

Johnny Appleseed was John Chapman, born in 1774, who planted apple nurseries across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and sold the seedlings to settlers.

Where was Johnny Appleseed born?

John Chapman was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1774; the street where he was born is now called Johnny Appleseed Lane.

What crop is a farm maze usually cut out of in the fall?

Corn mazes are cut into fields of tall corn in late summer and opened in the fall; farms build them to earn money from visitors, often next to a pumpkin patch.

What is the British name for the puzzle path cut into a cornfield in the fall?

In Britain corn is called maize, so a puzzle path cut through a cornfield is a maize maze, and the rhyme is the point of the name.

The record-setting corn maze cut in Québec in 2022 covered about how many acres?

About 66 acres: Luc Pelletier's maze at La Pocatière, Québec, set a Guinness record for a temporary corn maze in 2022, while most mazes cover 2 to 9 acres.

Which machine cuts and gathers crops like wheat and corn in the fall?

A combine harvester cuts the crop, separates the grain from the stalks and cleans it in one pass, which is how the 'combine' got its name.

What is dried grass that farmers store to feed animals through winter called?

Hay is grass cut and dried in summer and stored for winter feed; straw is the dry stalks left after grain is harvested and is mostly used as bedding.

In 'The Wizard of Oz', what does the Scarecrow wish he had?

The Scarecrow in L. Frank Baum's 1900 book and the 1939 film wants a brain; the Tin Man wants a heart and the Cowardly Lion wants courage.

Which Japanese village is famous for hundreds of scarecrows standing in for people who left?

Nagoro, a village on Shikoku island, is filled with life-size scarecrows made by resident Ayano Tsukimi to stand in for neighbours who moved away or died.

What is the nut of an oak tree called?

The oak's nut is the acorn, which sits in a little woody cup called a cupule; a single oak can drop thousands of them in a good year.

How long can it take for an acorn to ripen?

Five to 24 months: white oak acorns ripen in a single season, while red oak acorns hang on the tree through a second summer before they drop.

What is the word for a big crop of nuts, like acorns, that forest animals eat?

A huge acorn year is called a mast year.

A group of squirrels is called what?

A group of squirrels is a scurry; it can also be called a dray, which is also the name for a squirrel's leafy nest.

What special trick can tree squirrels do that most mammals cannot?

Tree squirrels climb down headfirst: they can swivel their back ankles around 180 degrees so the hind claws grip the bark while they descend.

The word 'squirrel' comes from Greek words meaning what?

Squirrel comes from the Greek skiouros, from skia (shade) and oura (tail), so it means shade tail; a squirrel's bushy tail can shade it like an umbrella.

Where do chipmunks carry food when they take it home for winter?

Chipmunks stuff food into stretchy cheek pouches that can hold several nuts at a time, then empty them into a larder in their burrow; the seeds they drop help new trees grow.

What kind of animal is a chipmunk?

A chipmunk is a small striped ground squirrel in the same family as tree squirrels; almost all kinds live in North America, with one, the Siberian chipmunk, in Asia.

What is it called when an animal sleeps deeply through the winter?

Hibernation is a deep winter sleep in which an animal's heartbeat, breathing and body temperature drop right down; a hibernating woodchuck's heart can slow to a few beats a minute.

Why do animals hibernate?

Animals hibernate to save energy when food is scarce in winter; a small hibernator like a ground squirrel can cut its energy use by more than 90 percent.

What do big animals like bears do before hibernating?

Before hibernating, bears eat huge amounts and get fat, gaining several pounds a day in the fall; smaller animals often store food instead of storing fat.

What do female black bears do while hibernating?

The cubs are born in the den in winter.

What do we call birds flying to warmer places for the winter?

Migration is the regular journey between breeding grounds and wintering grounds; many birds make the trip twice a year, flying south in the fall and back north in spring.

Which bird flies farthest each year, all the way from the far north to the far south?

The Arctic tern flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back, around 70,000 kilometres a year, so it sees two summers every year.

What mainly tells birds it is time to migrate?

The days getting shorter is the main trigger: changing day length sets off hormone changes that make birds restless and fatten up before they leave.

Which butterfly flies south from the northern US to Mexico each fall?

Monarch butterflies fly up to 3,000 miles to winter in the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico; it takes several generations to make the trip back north in spring.

What colours are the wings of the famous butterfly that migrates to Mexico?

Monarch wings are orange with black veins and black borders dotted with white; the smaller viceroy copies the pattern so birds that find monarchs poisonous leave it alone too.

What colour is the head of the big honking goose that grazes on parks and golf courses?

The Canada goose has a black head and neck with a white chinstrap across its cheeks; its body is brown and its chest pale.

What is the name for the fleshy flap that hangs over a male turkey's beak?

The snood is the fleshy flap that hangs over a turkey's beak; the wattle hangs from the throat. When he is excited the snood swells and turns bright red.

What is a male turkey called?

A male turkey is a tom or gobbler; the female is a hen and a young male is a jake. Toms are much bigger and do the gobbling.

Which continent are wild turkeys native to?

They are among the heaviest flying birds in the world.

What tuft grows from the middle of a male turkey's chest?

The tuft is called a beard, a bundle of stiff hair-like feathers hanging from the chest; it keeps growing for the turkey's whole life and can reach 10 inches or more.

On which day is Thanksgiving in the United States?

Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, fixed by a law Franklin Roosevelt signed in 1941 after a few years of confusion over whether it fell on the fourth or the last Thursday.

Which foods are traditional at a US Thanksgiving dinner?

Turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie are the classic Thanksgiving dishes, usually with stuffing, gravy, corn, squash and green beans alongside.

How many days did the Pilgrims' 1621 harvest celebration last?

The Pilgrims' 1621 celebration at Plymouth went on for three days, as settler Edward Winslow recorded, with about 90 Native guests joining some 50 colonists.

Which Native American taught the Pilgrims to catch eel and grow corn?

Squanto, whose full name was Tisquantum, was a Patuxet man who had learned English after being kidnapped to Europe; he showed the Pilgrims how to plant corn with fish as fertiliser.

Which Native people joined the Pilgrims' 1621 harvest feast?

About 90 Wampanoag men led by their sachem Massasoit joined the feast, bringing five deer; their farming and hunting know-how had helped the colonists survive.

What is the day after Thanksgiving called, when lots of people go shopping?

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is often the busiest shopping day of the year in the US; Philadelphia police used the name in the early 1960s for the traffic-jammed crowds.

Which president made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863?

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November in 1863, during the Civil War, after years of campaigning by magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale.

Which store puts on the famous Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City?

Macy's has put on the parade since 1924, when its employees marched from Harlem to the Herald Square store; NBC has been its official broadcaster since 1953.

Who arrived at the end of the very first Macy's parade in 1924?

Santa Claus rode at the end of the first parade in 1924 and was crowned 'King of the Kiddies' on the store balcony; he has closed the parade in nearly every year since.

Where did the animals in the first Macy's parade come from?

The 1924 parade borrowed animals such as bears, elephants and monkeys from the Central Park Zoo; they frightened children, so from 1927 giant balloons took their place.

Which fruit grows in wet, boggy ground and turns red when ripe?

It is related to blueberries.

Why do farmers flood cranberry bogs at harvest time?

Ripe cranberries have four small air pockets inside, so they float; growers flood the bog, churn the vines to knock the berries loose and corral the floating fruit.

In which year did canned cranberry sauce first go on sale across the whole United States?

Ocean Spray's jellied cranberry sauce went on sale nationwide in 1941, although Marcus Urann had been canning cranberry sauce in Massachusetts since 1912; cans let people buy it all year round.

A sweet potato is related to which garden flower?

The sweet potato belongs to the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae, and its vines bear similar trumpet-shaped flowers; it is only a distant cousin of the regular potato, a nightshade.

What spices go into pumpkin pie spice?

Pumpkin pie spice is a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, sometimes with allspice, the warm spices that give pumpkin pie its flavour.

Which coffee chain started selling pumpkin spice lattes in 2003?

For years the drink had no actual pumpkin in it; that changed in 2015.

What is maple syrup made from?

The sap is boiled until most of the water is gone.

Which Canadian province makes most of the world's maple syrup?

Quebec makes around 70 percent of the world's maple syrup, far ahead of Vermont, the top US state; its producers even keep a strategic reserve of syrup in barrels.

Who first made maple syrup?

Indigenous peoples of North America were tapping maple trees and boiling the sap long before Europeans arrived and taught the settlers; the sap runs in late winter and early spring.

What are maple seeds famous for?

They spin like helicopters as they fall.

How many neck bones does an owl have, letting it turn its head so far?

An owl has fourteen neck bones, twice the seven that humans have, which lets it turn its head about 270 degrees.

What is a group of owls called?

A group of owls is a parliament, a name popularised by C. S. Lewis's Narnia books, though most owls hunt alone at night so a real gathering is rare.

Why do owls have to turn their whole heads to look around?

An owl's eyes are fixed in their sockets, shaped like tubes rather than balls, so it cannot roll them and must swivel its whole head to look around.

Which are the only mammals that can truly fly?

Bats are the only mammals capable of true powered flight; flying squirrels and sugar gliders only glide. There are more than 1,400 kinds of bat, about a fifth of all mammal species.

What do most bats eat?

Most bats eat insects, snapping up moths, beetles and mosquitoes on the wing at night; only three vampire bat species drink blood, and many others eat fruit or nectar.

What is a hedgehog covered in?

A hedgehog is covered in about 5,000 to 7,000 stiff spines, which are really hollow hairs; its name comes from rooting around hedges with a piglike snout.

What game do British children play with horse chestnuts on strings?

Conkers is played with horse chestnuts threaded on strings; players take turns hitting the other's nut until one breaks, and a winning nut is called a one-er.

On what date is Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night, in Britain?

Bonfire Night is November 5, the anniversary of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Guy Fawkes was caught guarding barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords.

Diwali is often called the festival of what?

Diwali is the festival of lights: families light little clay oil lamps called diyas and set off fireworks to celebrate light winning over darkness.

What treat is eaten at China's Mid-Autumn Festival?

Mooncakes, round pastries filled with sweet bean or lotus-seed paste, are shared at the Mid-Autumn Festival, when families admire the full moon and children carry lanterns.

In which city is Oktoberfest held every year?

Oktoberfest is held in Munich, Bavaria; the first one, in October 1810, celebrated the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese with a horse race on the field now called the Theresienwiese.

In 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown', who waits all night in the pumpkin patch?

Linus waits in the pumpkin patch all night for the Great Pumpkin, with Sally keeping him company until she gives up; the special first aired on CBS in 1966.

In 'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving', what do Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock and Linus serve their guests instead of turkey?

Toast, popcorn and jelly beans, plus pretzel sticks and sundaes, make the feast Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock and Linus serve, and Peppermint Patty is not impressed.

What is the name of the nervous schoolteacher in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'?

Ichabod Crane is the lanky, superstitious schoolmaster in Washington Irving's 1820 story; he rides to the Van Tassel party on a borrowed horse named Gunpowder and meets the Headless Horseman on the way home.

The full moon nearest the September equinox, the first day of fall, gets what special name?

The Harvest moon rises within two weeks either side of the September equinox, and the full moon after it is called the hunter's moon.

In the Halloween game of bobbing for apples, how must you catch the apple?

You must grab the apple with your teeth, no hands allowed; apples float because they are about a quarter air, and in Scotland the game is called dooking.

What letter shape do flocks of geese make in the sky when they migrate in the fall?

A V is the shape, flown by swans and ducks too; scientists think it saves energy and lets big birds fly close together without bumping into each other's air swirls.

What is a baby goose called?

A gosling is a young goose before it can fly; a flock in flight can be called a skein, a team or a wedge.

What is the soft, fuzzy skin that covers a deer's antlers while they grow, carrying blood to the new bone, called?

Velvet carries blood and oxygen to the growing bone; in most deer the antlers fall off and regrow every year, controlled by the length of daylight.