It’s spring! Spring is so exciting, especially if you’ve had a long, cold winter. With the brighter, warmer sunshine and the longer daylight hours, it’s natural to want to get outside. And if you have little ones, you may really want them to be able to get outside. Outdoor play is so good for our kids, and it helps us parents to get a few minutes in a quiet house. Since we’re officially into spring now, let’s think about some ways to have some spring fun with your kids!
Get outdoors
Since getting outside is the most obvious spring fun activity, let’s start there. You may already have a list of fun outdoor activities you’d like to do with your kids. But if not, here are a few ways to have some spring fun with your kids outdoors.
Nature walks or easy hikes require very little prep work. Just slather on the sunscreen, pack water and snacks, make sure everyone has used the potty, and head out. What might seem like a simple trail, or even a boring trail to you is likely to be the best adventure to your little ones. So if it’s a nice day, see if you can take a simple hike with your kids.
Picnics are another really easy way to have some spring fun with your kids. You don’t even have to have a full blown picnic. Just pack some of your favorite snacks and head to the park with a blanket. And then, after enjoying a picnic snack at the park, kids can run around or play on a playground and just have a bunch of fun.
You could do a picnic lunch or a picnic dinner too. Picnics feel so fancy and fun, even if you have a simple meal. So whether it’s a picnic snack or a picnic meal, spring is a great time to head outside for some picnic fun.
Animals are another way to have some spring fun with your kids. Spring is the perfect time to head to a petting zoo or a farm to see some baby animals. This is a fun way to spend some time outside and to learn a few things too.
So, with the beautiful weather in spring, let’s find some fun outdoor activities to do with our kids.
Spring Sensory Play
There are other ways to have some spring fun with your kids though. What about some sensory play? We know that kids love to feel and explore everything through touch. And we know that it’s really good for their development too.
In the springtime, there tends to be some mud. And lots of kids love the mud. What a sensory experience, right? So if your kids like the mud, you can let them get muddy and have some fun. And if your kids (or you) don’t want to play in the mud, there’s also just plain dirt.
Again, if you or your kids don’t want to play with dirt, that’s not the only way to have the sensory experience of dirt. Kids can also enjoy planting seeds in the dirt or using a small cultivator tool to smooth out the dirt before planting. There are lots of ways to use dirt and mud for sensory fun in the spring.
Flower petal soup is another fun sensory activity. Your kids just need a bucket of water and some flower petals or leaves. And maybe something to use as bowls. It’s fun to float the petals on the water, and the stirring and scooping of the water is a great sensory activity.
Not all spring days are nice outdoors, and we don’t always want to be outside in the spring. So here’s a fun springtime indoor sensory activity. To make rainbow rice, split equal amounts of rice into several ziplock bags. Place several drops of food coloring into each bag. Seal the bags and let your kids work the food coloring into all the rice by squishing and squeezing the bags around. Then, lay the rice out on a baking sheet and bake it at the lowest temperature for only 5 minutes. This should dry out the rice and the food coloring. Once it’s cooled, you can mix it in a bin for tons of sensory fun. There is visual interest, sound, fine motor skill practice, and concentration.
Spring learning
Sensory activities and farm animals are great learning activities. You can also head to the library and check out picture books about spring. Spring is also a good time to track the weather. Kids love adding a cloud or a raindrop to a chart and writing the temperature. And spring weather is varied enough that your kids should see a good variety of weather to record.
And there are, of course, ASL signs you can learn to go with the springtime. Have some spring fun with your kids by learning the signs for flower, garden, bee, or kite.
You could also learn signs for your favorite springtime colors.
And then, of course, there is the sign for spring. And check out the TreeSchoolers episode about the Earth and the seasons over at My Signing Time too.
So now that it’s springtime, have some spring fun with your kids. Get outside, make memories, embrace some messiness, and enjoy the spring together!