Spring Activities for Preschoolers
Spring is in the air! We are ready to put aside the heavy coats and gloomy days and enjoy some spring fun! This year I want to be more intentional about seasonal activities with my kiddos, so I am putting together a list of the best spring activities for preschoolers.
I hope these activities will give you some ideas that you can glean from and make your spring lesson planning a bit easier!
Spring Activities for Preschool Science
If you are looking for some science related spring activities for preschoolers, here are some great seasonal options!
Dissecting a Flower
Trees and plants are starting to bloom, and our littles are excited to see the changes in nature. What a great opportunity to teach them about flowers!
If you have never dissected a plant with your preschooler before, start with the basics: flower, stem, leaves and roots. You can find books, songs and YouTube videos that will help your kids learn the information.
I would encourage you to find some flowers that you can pull out of the ground with your preschooler. Pulling the flower from the ground gives your kiddo the chance to see the roots instead of just looking at a pre-cut flower from the store.
You can even use weeds for this activity. I would just recommend to stay away from weeds that have the white, milk-like substance inside them (like in dandelions), so that your kiddos don’t get super sticky.
Collect a variety of flowers and bring them home. Take them apart and use a magnifying glass to get a good look at the different sections. Then, paste the parts to sturdy paper. I would suggest putting it into a sheet protector or putting packing tape over the plant parts, so they don’t fall apart with time.
Follow-Up Activities:
Have your children pretend they are flowers as you go through this study. Talk about the purpose of each part of the plant as they act it out.
They can put their arms in a circle around their head for the “flower.” Encourage them to stand tall and still for the stem and pretend to be sucking from a straw. They can stretch their hands out and hold their palms up for the leaves. Finally, crouch down and wiggle their fingers as they touch the ground for the roots.
Doing these actions over the course of a few days will really help the information stick, and trust me, they will start pointing to random flowers they see and start doing their “flower actions.”
Peep Sink or Float
Who doesn’t love Peeps around springtime?! Even though the love is there, I don’t want my kids indulging in too many. So what do I do with the leftovers? Turn them into a science experiment!
Collect some objects around the house that you want to include in your experiment. If you want to have all “spring” objects, you can include things like a jelly bean, plastic egg, boiled egg, flower, carrot, plastic insect, a piece of grass, and of course, a peep!
Now, fill up a large container or the sink with water. Let your little scientist make a prediction about whether an object will sink or float, then test it out! You can make a chart of the things that sink and ones that float.
Ask your kiddo why they think some objects sink and others float. Their answers can be fascinating, and it’s so fun to see their little minds at work! Now you can explain that some objects are more dense than others. The ones that are more dense, sink. Objects that are less dense, float. Stress that the size of the object does not matter as much as what the object is made out of.
Now here is the really fun part – the peep part – of the experiment. Challenge your kiddo to see if they can make the peep sink. If they can manage to squeeze the air out and shape the peep into the correct form, it will sink! Who knew?! You can explain to them that the little air bubbles makes the peep less dense, so it floats. But when the air is taken out, the peep sinks because it is more dense.
When considering all the spring activities for preschoolers, this one may quickly become a favorite!
Life Cycle of a Bean
Spring is a season full of life, with things growing everywhere you look. What a perfect opportunity to teach your kids how things grow!
One of the ways that you can do this is by showing them with a Lima bean. You can use other beans as well-this was just the one that I chose since it grows pretty quickly.
Be sure that you don’t use beans that have been sitting in your pantry for a few years. I speak from experience… they don’t germinate! Time to clean out my pantry…
Put a damp paper towel inside a ziplock back and slip at least 3 beans inside. Most likely at least one of the 3 will germinate. Tape the bag to a sunny window with the seeds facing the inside so that you can observe them easily.
Watch them grow!
The kids will be so excited to see each small change. Keep track of the growth in a notebook and talk about each different stage: seed, germination, seedling, and adult.
After a while, the paper towel will start to mold, so you’ll want to get rid of it and transfer the beans to soil if you want to keep watching it. Your bean will most likely not get to the adult stage in the bag, but all of the other stages are easily observable in the bag!
Follow-Up Activities:
Read books and watch videos on how plants grow. A great extension to this spring activity for preschoolers is to actually start a small garden in a pot or in the ground. The children will not be able to see the seed or germination stages inside the ground, but they will love the surprise of seeing the adult plant once it sprouts out of the soil! And since they saw the other stages in their bag, they won’t be missing out.
Another benefit of growing a garden is that your children will practice the responsibility of caring for their plants and pulling the weeds. Plus, they get the benefits of playing in dirt and learning organically!
Spring Art and Craft Activities
Here are some spring activities for preschoolers that will get them engaged in some crafting! The first activity that I include is not only fun for the whole family but can be also used for beautiful Easter decor.
Natural Egg Dyeing
I was born into a Ukrainian home, so this was a yearly Easter tradition that I remember fondly.
Start by collecting the following items:
- Yellow onion peels (just brown outer layer) – collect as many as you can over several weeks.
- Old pantyhose – Dig hard in that sock drawer. If you have no luck there, try checking your daughter’s old clothes bins.
- Small pretty leaves or fresh herbs
- White eggs
- Small rubber bands
Grab your kiddo and get ready to see some excitement!
- Have your kiddo dump out the onion peels into a pot.
- Add enough water to cover the onion peels
- Boil the peels for about 10 minutes. The longer you boil the peels, the more color will come out into the water.
- While the peels are boiling, have your little one help with holding the herbs or leaves onto the sides of the eggs while you wrap the pantyhose around them and tie them with your rubber band.
- Once the onion peels have boiled for 10 minutes, gently put the eggs into the pot and let them boil for about 10 minutes. The longer they boil, the darker they will get.
- Let the water and the eggs cool until they can be handled.
- Let your kiddo cut the pantyhose (or take the rubber band off) to reveal your beautiful dyed eggs!
This spring activity for preschoolers can become a yearly family tradition!
Chick Painting
This spring activity for preschoolers is really simple and fun even for the youngest student!
Start by pouring some yellow paint into a small bowl. Give your kiddo a paper plate (not the glossy smooth kind!) and a plastic fork. Instruct them to dip the fork into the paint and spread it onto the paper plate. Have them start from the middle and drag the fork toward the outside. This part is the creation of “feathers” on the chick.
Another option is to just put a dab of pain right in the middle of the paper plate and have them spread it out with their fork. Either way works!
Once the paint dries, have your kiddo glue googly eyes and a construction paper beak (triangle) for the face. You may have to pre-cut a beak for the younger preschoolers.
If you want, you can add pipe cleaner feet or just construction paper feet to your chick to complete the project! Voila! Simple and cute!
Spring Greeting Card
Why not include some spring activities for preschoolers that can also be gifts? My kiddos love to make cards. Their grandparents live out of state, so we always have a good reason to make some.
You will need some cardstock, a stamp pad, and either construction paper or scrapbooking paper and a pen.
Give your little one green (or any color you want!) construction paper or scrapbooking paper. Let him or her cut pieces of paper out. It really doesn’t matter how the pieces are cut. Strips, triangles, or random shapes (remember we’re working with preschoolers here!) all work great.
Here is my son insisting that he is cutting out elephants… Little does he know that we will use those “elephants” to make the grass on his card.
While they are cutting, you can fold the cardstock into cards. I determine the size of the card based on the size envelopes that I have on hand. A paper trimmer is really handy for making straight, even cuts.
When you are both done cutting, have your little one glue the paper to the bottom of the card. This paper is the “grass.”
Next, take your stamp pad. (I recommend having a multi-colored one so that you can have a variety of flower colors.) And use your children’s fingers to stamp flower heads onto the card.
Draw the stems and leaves and you’re done! You have a sweet card to send to loved ones who will be ecstatic about getting a personal card with tiny little fingerprints on it.
I turned these into “thank you” cards for the kids’ Bible study teachers by adding a simple printed tag.
Spring Outdoor Activities
After a long winter, there is nothing that is more exciting than getting outside! Here are some really simple spring activities for preschoolers that you can plan to enjoy outdoors with your whole family!
Visit a Farm
Rabbits are all over the place when spring rolls around. Go visit one on a farm! Some farms have places where you can pet rabbits or even hold them around Easter.
Go on a Hike
There are so many changes happening in our world in the spring. Go on a hike with your littles and get excited about those changes. Point out the buds on the trees, the flowers peeking out of the ground, and the birds singing as they play. Invite your kids to notice the changes too. Make stops so that your kiddos can touch the bark of a tree, pick up a special rock, or find a walking stick to drag along as they hike.
Neighborhood Cleanup
I hope to instill the desire to serve others in my children. At a young age much of that is done through modeling, however there are things that they can participate in to experience the joy of serving.
A simple way to do this is to go walk around the neighborhood or your local playground and pick up any garbage that you notice. Make sure you are all wearing gloves and have a garbage bag.
Enjoy Springtime With Your Preschooler!
I hope that you can enjoy these spring activities for preschoolers with your kiddos.
What are your favorite spring activities for preschoolers? Do you have any favorite Easter family traditions? I’d love to hear about them!
