Preschool Activities and Resources for Spring
My daughters are four-years-old and two-years-old, so at this age our focus is free-play, lots of time outside, and reading. To keep things exciting and help me come up with activities, each week we focus on a new subject. We also go to the library about once a week and check out books based on the focus of the week, plus whatever other books strike our fancy. (If you haven’t gotten a library card yet, GET ONE!)
Here is our SPRING plan:
Week One: TREES
Goals: Identify trees in our backyard and around the neighborhood, discuss the importance of trees, and foster a deep appreciation for trees.
Week Two: BACKYARD BIRDS
Goals: Identify birds in our backyard and around the neighborhood, learn more about native birds, make bird feeders and create a welcoming environment to attract more birds.
Week Three: GARDENING
Goals: Learn that flowers and plants come from seeds, plant a garden, discuss everything a garden needs to thrive and apply to our own garden.
Week Four: BUTTERFLIES
Goals: Learn about the life cycle of a butterfly, plant milkweed for monarchs, and watch the behaviors of butterflies in our garden.
Week Five: BEES
Goals: Understand the importance of bees and other pollinators, learn more about their colony, and make bee water for the garden. .
Completely by accident, Tree Week fell on Arbor Day and Bee Week will fall on Bee Day. SCORE! Also, just because the week is over, that doesn’t mean we stop talking about that subject. Each week we just keep building on our knowledge. For example, “Wow! The owl is in the OAK TREE!” “I can’t remember what kind of plant butterflies love…do you remember the name?” “Mom! There’s a bee on the zinnia!” These subjects all work so well together and add depth and joy to our spring experience.
Trees:
We could spend our life learning about trees and still have so much to learn. For example, did you know that trees have their own system of communication? Our dependence and connection to trees is amazing and my enthusiasm for learning trees knows no bounds. Here are some of the activities that we did, barely grazing the surface of the wonder of trees. My favorite part of learning about trees has been watching my daughters’ fascination with learning about new trees we see. Just this morning my youngest picked up a leaf and said “MOM! What kind of tree is this?” They can quickly identify the trees most popular in our neighborhood, such as Oak and Maple, and are eagerly curious about other trees.
Identify trees with Seek by iNaturalist:
We started with our trees in our backyard. Using the app called Seek, we learned that we have an Oak tree, an Elm tree, and a Maple tree in our backyard. We found a leaf for each tree to save for leaf printing later, and then took what we learned on a walk around our neighborhood. Together we found more Oak Elm, and Maple trees. Throughout the week we branched out (see what I did there) and found more new trees: Tulip tree, river birch, cedar,
In the weeks following, my girls get so excited about pointing out trees they recognize and looking up trees we don’t recognize; I’ve learned a TON about trees through their curiosity. This unit has also blended in so well with our other areas of focus.
Leaf printing: Using leaves we’ve collected in the grass, we’ve made a leaf print of all the new trees we’ve identified. This is such an easy and fun activity to do with young children; my two year old could even do it. How to: place a leaf on a piece of paper, then lay another piece of paper on top of the leaf, covering it completely with a blank sheet of white paper. With a crayon or colored pencil, lightly color on the paper where the leaf is, pressing the paper down to create a print of the leaf. You might need to color over the leaf several times to get a good print.
Hand trees:
To create the outline of a tree, I traced my daughters hands and arms on brown paper. After cutting out our “trees”, we cut out green circles to be the leaves. This was a great way to practice cutting and gluing. On the leaves, we made a list of everything we could think of that trees give us. We wrote down oxygen, wood, homes for animals, shade, paper, forts, tree houses, etc. We also brainstormed a list of every animal we could think of that lives in a tree. This was a great discussion about how important trees are to our survival and overall happiness.
Tree root drawing: We also discussed tree roots and how they look similar to branches, but grow underground. I shared with the girls that roots are kind of like straws, and they drink up water from deep in the earth to keep the tree alive. Using chalk, we drew pictures of what roots look like.
Book recommendations:
Backyard Birds:
During our backyard bird unit, we were fortunate enough to have our owls nesting in our backyard. I say “our” owls because these owls have been living in our oak tree for five years, and this is the second year that they have had babies. Mom owl became so comfortable with us watching her she often perched right above our heads while we sat outside. The Barred Owl hoot sounds like this: Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all”, and my daughters find no greater pleasure than trying to imitate their calls. For a week straight we witnessed the owlets hopping around the trees, falling out of the trees, and mama owl frantically caring for her babies. Learning at its finest In addition to watching our owls, we wrote down a list of every new bird we saw in our backyard, and identified birds around our neighborhood and in my mom’s backyard. (Her backyard is a bird sanctuary; every morning she feeds the birds seeds, jelly, oranges, and sugar water. She attracts SO many birds.)
DIY binoculars:
To enhance our backyard bird watching experience, we made our own binoculars out of toilet paper rolls, paper, yarn, and pipe cleaners. Is there anything you can’t make with these items? We decorated paper towel rolls with paper using tape and glue, and connected two paper towel rolls using pipe cleaners. Then, we attached a piece of yarn for a neck strap. Viola!
We used our binoculars for bird watching, in particular our baby Robins and our Barred Owls. Pictures below.
Seeds & Flowers:
We’re all about hands-on learning! Which is why I’m so pumped about all these topics. So many opportunities to get our hands dirty-literally! What better way to learn about seeds and flowers than to plant our own garden?
Grow your own magic beans:
Supplies:
- Green bean seeds
- 1 ziplock bag
- 1 damp paper towel
I talked to my girls about where fruits and vegetables come from, and showed them seeds from foods we were eating that day. For example, I showed them the seeds on a strawberry and we cut up an apple and looked at the seeds inside. Then, I told them that the green beans seeds would turn into green beans. (I also told them the story of Jack and the Magic Beanstalk to build some excitement about growing the seeds.)
First, fold up a damp paper towel and then place a handful of seeds on the outside of the paper towel. Put the paper towel and the seeds in a ziplock bag, so that you can see the seeds. Then, tape the zip lock bag in a sunny window. In the next couple of days you and your kids can watch the beans sprout! My daughters loved checking the bag each morning. After about a week in the bag, we took the bean seeds out and then planted them in our vegetable garden.
Make paper flowers:
Supplies:
- Paint
- Coffee filters
- Pipe cleaners
I borrowed this idea from this blog- her flowers turned out much better than ours! https://onelittleproject.com/coffee-filter-flowers/
Plant your own garden:
As I said, hands-on activities are the best. This spring, my girls and I planted a garden full of zinnias, cosmos, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zinnias. They helped me with every step of this process, from getting the dirt ready, planting the seeds, weeding and watering. We love our little garden, and it loves us back!
Visit local gardens:
During our garden unit, we visited a beautiful, expansive local garden. This was also a chance for us to watch pollinators, identify trees, listen to birds, and connect everything we’ve been discussing so far in this unit.
Book recommendations:
Butterflies:
Did you know that butterflies taste with their feet? My daughters LOVE that fun fact.
For our Butterfly Unit, we focused on the life cycle of butterflies and flowers that attract butterflies. We also planted milkweed in our garden and learned about Monarch Butterfly migration. Fascinating stuff!
Book Recommendations:
Butterfly Life Cycle
Egg, Caterpillar, Cocoon (or Chrysalis) and Butterfly
Supplies: Play-Doh
Butterfly Life Cycle part 2
Supplies: coffee filters, watercolors, pipe cleaners, pom poms, and leaves.
Bees:
If you see a bee in the evening, it is likely an old bee and is making as many trips as it can before it dies. Bees only live for about 40 days, visit 1000 flowers, and make about a teaspoon of honey. Honey does not ever expire and it is the only food that contains everything needed to sustain life. I never get tired of learning about all the wonders of bees! And did you know that it’s important to TALK to your bees? We shamelessly greet our bees from our garden and tell them THANK YOU repeatedly. Learn more about the importance of talking to your bees here: https://daily.jstor.org/telling-the-bees/
Honeycomb Painting:
Supplies: toilet paper/paper towel rolls, sponge, paint, paper. We tried using toilet paper rolls and folding them into hexagon shapes and cutting sponges into hexagon shapes. There are lots of other ways you could make hexagon stamps.
Visiting local beekeepers- we even got to meet a QUEEN bee.
Egg Carton Bee Hive
We made little bees out of play-doh and balls of honey. We practiced counting to 12 using each honey ball and placing it in each beach little “room” in the beehive.
Supplies: Egg carton (ours was already yellow- but coloring one yellow could be a fun activity for your kids) and play-doh.
Egg Carton Bee:
How cute are these little bees? The egg cartons were perfect for this project because we learned about the body parts of a bee: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. This also sparked a good discussion about bees’ stingers and that they only sting when they feel they have no other option and to protect their hive. After a bee stings someone, its stinger falls out and the bee slowly dies. Bees do not want to sting anyone.
Supplies: Egg cartons (cut into 1/4ths) pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue, and markers/paint/colored pencils.
Bee Water:
If you pick one thing from this unit to try- try this! Every day we fill up our little bee water cup- my daughters LOVE helping me with this. This is such an easy way to help take care of our bees. Seeing a bee land on a little marble to drink water will be the highlight of your day!
Supplies: A shallow dish that you can keep outside, marbles/rocks/seashells.
The Waggle Dance:
Bees do a little “waggle” dance to tell their bee friends where to go to find flowers. Here is a very simplified overview that I explained to my 5yo and 2 yo: The direction the bee walks tells their bee friends how far to fly, and the direction the wiggle their booty in tells them which direction. To model this, we drew a big compass with chalk, then marked where the “flowers” were located. My daughters then followed the trail and “wiggled’ to indicate where the flowers were. (We used the location of our garden as the bee destination.)
Supplies: chalk and a sense of humor
Have I mentioned how amazing it is that we get to spend our spring days like this? I always hope to model the connection I feel to nature to my daughters, and based on their enthusiasm with these topics, I’d definitely say I’m rubbing off on them.