Spring Activities

We all love it when we see the first daffodil or snowdrop of Spring and give a huge sigh of relief that the worst of the winter is over. There are loads of spring activities and teaching ideas below to try out with the kids at school or at home so please read on, grab some ideas and have some fun !

Most of these activities are designed for pre-school children but could be used with any age with a little bit of tweaking!! Have a look and decide for yourself.

Weather based Spring Activities

Dressing Up

Do you get fed up with doing buttons up on coats or putting boots on the right feet? Well have a go at this weather themed spring activities game and help the kids to help themselves!

It also has an added bonus of encouraging them to learn their numbers!

What you need:

10 articles of clothing in a basket . Choose things that won't take an age to put on!
The numbers 1-10 shuffled and turned downwards on the floor.

What to do. Children sit in a circle and take turns to pick up a number from the pile, say the number and put on the appropriate number of clothes as quickly as they can.

Rainbows

This was one of my kids favourite spring activities.

It's a good one to practice pencil control using colored markers.

What you need is

a selection of different colored markers
half of a coffee filter paper.
Water in a pot
Paintbrushes

All you have to do is get the kids to draw arcs in different colors onto the coffee filter and then wash over the arcs with the water and watch the colors merge! Just like a rainbow!

If you're looking for other rainbow theme ideas have a look here

We then returned to the classroom.I set out a table for the task and told them what we were going to do.

I then put on some slow,relaxed 'cloud like' music to create the right atmosphere and was amazed at the results!

All you need is

some clothes pins
some cotton wool balls
white paint in a container
blue paper to print your picture on or if you prefer cut out cloud shapes for younger kids
Some slow atmospheric music.

Then all the kids have to do is clip a cotton wool ball into a clothes pin, dip it in the white paint and blob their cloud shapes all over the paper.

When dry they can be used for as part of a display.

Go to the cloud theme page for more cloud activities.

Play Box

Photo Credit : Sakanami

Incorporate a play box of dressing up clothes into your home corner and include things like raincoats, hats, umbrellas and scarves for the kids to use while playing.

You can also add some musical instruments for them to use and make weather sounds like a triangle for the pitter- patter of rain and a drum for thunder claps [if you can stand it!]

Noisy idea for spring activities!

Let's go fly a Kite!

Kids love making things that they can play with later, so why not make a kite with them and then take it outside and try it out,

You will need to prepare a few templates of different shaped kites for the kids to draw round and cut out for themselves. If you prefer, prepare the shapes for them and all they need to do is to decorate them with markers.

If you want them to be more creative just put various materials on the table with some glue and scissors and they can be imaginative and create their own ideas for their kites.

Show them how to make a tail for their kite by twisting several lengths of tissue paper and gluing them onto the base of their kite.

Then all that remains is to attach the string and away you go!

More wind theme activities on this page.

Mrs Mopple's Washing Line

This is one of the spring activities to try out after you have read the story of Mrs Mopple's washing line by Anita Hewett.

To buy the book. Just click on the tittle

It's better if you can have the water tray outside together with a drying line, This way you won't get a pool of water on the floor of the classroom!

What you need is
several small items of clothes to wash,
a water tray with warm soapy water in it,
a drying line
some clothes pins.

The kids will love washing the clothes and hanging them on the line to dry. Discuss with them what they can do to make the clothes dry quicker, ie squeeze as much water out as possible before hanging them out.

While they are waiting for the clothes to dry they could color in some paper clothes from the story such as striped woolly bed socks or a pink frilly petticoat and hang them on a line indoors.This would make a great display board to go with the story.

Messy Spring Activity!

Mud Pies

This is definitely the messiest of my spring activities! Some kids will love it others will hate it but I can guarantee that even if they hate the idea of getting their hands dirty they will love watching!

You never know they might even want a go!

What you need.

2 packets of instant chocolate pudding,
a carton of milk,
a jug,
a big plastic tray.
You also need some utensils to mix the mud with.

What you do is empty the packets of chocolate pudding into the tray and tell the kids they are going to make some lovely gooey mud. Ask them to slowly pour the milk from the jug onto the chocolate and mix it up with a spoon or a whisk. After it is well mixed together they can have some fun making mud pies or just enjoying the texture!

Growing things: Spring Activities

Growing Beans

One of my favourite spring activities is to show the kids the miracles of nature by growing something from seed. I usually start by reading the story of Jack and the beanstalk. There is a great book for pre school kids called

SHHH! by Sally Grindley

which holds their interest until the end and gives you the chance to explain the real Jack and the Beanstalk story in your own words.

Photo credit : TessaWatson

You will need

some bean seeds,
some cotton wool
Some jam jars or plastic cups [if you do this in the classroom] This way the kids can watch the roots as well as the shoots growing
a watering can

Put every thing out on a table covered with a plastic sheet and allow the kids to stuff some cotton wool into the jars or cups. Then you just pop in the seeds and water them. Within a few days the first roots will start to grow and then the shoots. If you have a garden area in your school you can plant them outside with a cane and watch them climb!

I usually do a bit of talking about what the seed will need in order to grow tall and strong so that Jack can climb up to the castle.

With older kids I usually do an experiment and put some pots in the dark and note the differences

Cress Men

photo credit: Epredator

If you've ever grown beans with your kids you'll know how long you have to wait for the first shoots to appear! This spring activity is for kids that can't wait!

You will need

a packet of cress seed,
an empty egg shell ,top taken off,
some compost
an egg cup or egg carton to stand it in.

Fill the egg shell with the compost and sprinkle over the very small cress seeds adding a little smidgen of water. Then put in a light position and wait!

You should end up with a green hairy cress man! Don't forget to add the face!

Arty Stuff now!

Cloud Art

Before doing this activity I took the kids outside an we looked at the various shapes of the clouds in the sky and talked about what they resembled. They certainly came up with some imaginative ideas and could see far more things than I could!

A Green Collage

Green is often associated with growing things. This is a very simple collage that any age of child can do on their own without adult intervention.

You will need

different shades of green paper or fabric or in fact anything green that will stick!
Glue and brush
Either a large piece of white card [for group projects ] or small pieces for individual work.

The children tear small shapes of paper from all the various textures and stick them haphazardly onto the card until it is completely covered. When it is dry an adult might want to paint watered down PVA glue over the whole picture to give it a shiny finish.

A Blossom Tree

This Spring idea might just need a little bit of help from an adult to draw the tree shape but I think if you have a picture of a tree at hand the kids should be able to have a go.It's far nicer if it's all their own work!

You will need:

a small rectangle of blue paper.
A tray of pink paint
A pot of brown paint with brushes

Ask the kids to paint a simple tree shape on their paper with the brown paint.Then they dip their finger into the pink paint and finger paint blossom all around their tree .It looks good if they put some around the base of the tree as well.

This is a great idea for a Mothers day card !

Farming: Spring Activities

Dressing Sheep

This is one of the easiest spring activities which the kids will love doing and also helps develop their hand co-ordination.

You will need:

some empty boxes from the junk modelling collection
some balls of wool [white,black and grey if possible]
glue for the head
sticky tape
clothes pins

The child chooses a ball of wool for his/her sheep and sellotapes the end to the cardboard box. [They might need a bit of help with this] Then they wind the wool round and round the box until the 'sheep' is completely covered with a nice warm coat! They might like to add a head and a tail to make it more authentic!

You might like to look at my farm theme page for some more ideas

Shearing Sheep

Providing you don't have a kid that is scared of balloons like I did, this is another of my spring activities in which you can use shaving foam!

Simply blow up a round balloon, secure the end and spray it all over with shaving foam! This is the sheep! Now you take a lolly stick and shear the sheep. If you do it in a large plastic container then you can recycle the foam over and over again.

My kids got a real kick out of this idea and even put foam back on the sheep for the next child!

More farm theme ideas here.

Spring activities with a math focus

How Tall is He?

Math based spring activities are always good, and this one helps the kids with their measuring skills

You will need some large ,simple pictures of farm animals which have been covered in plastic to ensure that thy last for more than one session! Also some unifix bricks or similar linking bricks to measure with.

The children line the bricks along the width or height of the animal and then count the bricks to see how long or high it is. Helps with their number skills too!

Go to farm theme for more math ideas.

Piggy Banks

The kids can do this maths based activity either by themselves or in a group of up to 4. It works better if there is an adult present as they often need help with counting the 'pennies' accurately.

You will need

4 playing boards which are simple outlines of piggy bank money boxes
a tray with lots of coins in [all the same]
a dice

The kids take it in turns to throw the dice and put the appropriate number of coins onto their piggy. This continues until either the kids get bored or all the coins run out . The latter is of course more preferable!

They then count their coins and the one with the most is the winner.

There are some more math farm theme ideas on this page.

Spring Maze Printable

Spring is the perfect time to ramp up your little one's critical thinking skills with this flower maze.and answers. For more fun and engaging learning activities, go to Education.com!

Tractor Tyre Painting

This is the time of year we start to see the tractors in the fields so we thought this would be a great springtime activity idea to try with the kids.

They can do individual pictures or if you need a background for your display board then this is a great idea.

You will need

paper large or small depending on what youre doing.
several trays with different colour paints in.
some toy tractors.Plastic ones are preferable to metal because they wash easier.

Then the kids can just enjoy dipping the tractors into the paint and driving them round the paper!

If you've found these spring activities fun have a look at the season topics page for some more ideas.