
Spring

Coordinating Units:
Peter
Rabbit
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
(LOTS of
butterfly activities)

Spring Art:
To make a duck or swan using handprints, paint palm, fingers, thumb using yellow (duck) or white (swan). Press on paper w/ fingers together (body) thumb up (head). Draw beak and dip end of pinky in black for eye
Handprint Tulips: Paint palm and fingers (with or without thumb) any color. Use finger to paint stem and leaves.
Coffee Filter Flowers:
Have students color the coffee filter using
washable markers in springtime colors. Caution them to not color too much in one place or they’ll make a hole in the filter. (They don’t even have to color the whole filter, cut colors will run when wet.) Place the filters on newspaper and
spray gently with water from a spray bottle. The colors run and create a beautiful effect. When dry, gather in the center and use a green pipecleaner to form a stem. Fluff open. Make a couple of leaf shapes and place a hole in them with a hole punch. Thread the leaves onto the stem.
Wallpaper Art:
Trace a flower vase onto wallpaper samples for each student and have the students cut them out. The students will glue the vase onto construction paper and then cut long, narrow strips of green construction paper for flower stems. Provide them with flower “heads” duplicated on white construction paper to decorate, cut out, and glue onto the tops of the stems. Or, you can furnish the students with colored construction paper and have them make their own flower heads.
Whirlygig: Make a square, have the kids decorate it brightly. Pull the corners to the center and stick a pin through it into an eraser of a pencil. The kids can take it outside and watch it turn in the wind, or they can blow on it to make it turn.
Windsocks: paint and decorate a paper towel tube. Make a hanger with yarn at the top of the tube. Use bright colored crepe streamers to hang down.
Inside Windsocks: ~ Cut a sheet of construction paper in half vertically. Allow students to decorate with markers, stickers, or by gluing on appropriate springtime Ellison die-cuts if desired. There are some cute flowers and birds that could be used. Staple the ends of the construction paper together, overlapping slightly. This should form a circle. Make a hanger by hole punching 2 or 3 holes in the top of the circle and threading yarn through it. Glue or staple on bright colored crepe paper streamers.
~ Another idea … make the windsock base as described above using pink construction paper. Instead of using crepe paper, cut pink and white construction paper into one inch strips of varying lengths. Glue or staple them around the bottom of the base. After they’ve dried, roll the strips around a pencil to curl them.
Springtime Mobile:
Use the basic directions above to make the base of the mobile. Glue on spring flower die-cuts. Instead of adding crepe paper streamers, take inventory of your Ellison die-cuts. Choose 5 die-cuts that depict spring (robin, cardinal, different types of flowers, kite, butterfly, rabbit, rainbow, etc). Hole punch 5 holes around the bottom of the mobile base. Thread alternate lengths of yarn through the holes and tie in a knot. Have students glue a die-cut to the end of each piece of yarn. Allow to dry before hanging.
Plants: Have each student place a wet papertowel and a dried bean into a ziploc bag. Tape to the inside of the window at the children’s level. Make a similar bag but tape it inside a dark closet or storage cabinet. Have the students make predictions about what will happen.
The students will be able to observe the bean sprouting and losing it’s seed coat. Allow the students to compare/contrast the beans in the window with the bean in the darkness. Give them the opportunity to closely inspect their bean sprout, but be forewarned, this can be smelly. :) Then allow the students to plant their bean sprouts and place them back in the sunshine for observation.
If appropriate, your students could keep a journal from the beginning of this project to the end. They could write their predictions and observations in their journal.
Coffee filter butterflies:
This is similar to the project described above for the coffee filter flowers. But instead of creating a flower with the dried coffee filter, you create a butterfly. Gather the dried coffee filter in the center using an accordian style gathering method. Twist the filter together with a black pipecleaner. Spread the coffee filter out to form the wings. Use the left over pipecleaner to form a body for the butterfly and his antennae. Curl the ends of the antennae slightly outwards. You can add a magnet to these and send them home to grace the parents’ refrigerators. My daughter made these in Kindergarten and it’s still on my refrigerator … and she’s 17 years old! :)
Horrible Hair!: Have the students draw a face on a white styrofoam cup. Then, plant grass in the cup, and watch the "hair" grow! The students will enjoy giving this guy a haircut and watching it grow back!
Baby chicks: Cut the separate little egg cups from a white styrofoam egg carton. Make jagged edges around the top to resemble a cracked egg. Glue this to a small square of posterboard. Glue dried grass, hay, or excelsior around the bottom of the egg to form a nest. Use either two yellow cotton balls or two yellow pom-poms to form a chick. Glue one of top of the other inside the egg to form the chicks body and head. Cut a tiny diamond from orange felt and fold in half. Put a string of hot glue on the fold and stick on the chicks face. Glue on wiggly eyes.
Spring Walk:
Take a walk, then come back and have your students participate in making a class book. The sentence frame could be “I saw a ______. “ Each student illustrates their sentence.
You could also read the book
I Went Walking. Your sentence frame could be “I went walking. What did you see? I saw a (color) (object) looking at me.”
Daffodils: ~ To make the daffodils, cut up paper egg cartons and have the children paint the individual cups yellow. (That's the cup) Do this a day or two in advance and let them dry. Cut two circles approximately 4 inches in diameter out of bright yellow crepe paper or you could use a yellow muffin paper. (That's the frill) Then the children trace a large star onto yellow paper and cut it out. It should be slightly large than the crepe paper circles. (That's the star of course!) Use a sharp instrument to stick a hole in the middle of all 3 pieces. Put a “knot” in one end of a green pipecleaner by rolling it into a small ball. Thread the other end of the pipecleaner through the 3 pieces. Cut out two green leaves from construction paper and thread onto the stem. Put each student’s initials on the bottom of their flower. Display all the flowers together in a single vase or two. This will make a beautiful springtime arrangement.
~ another idea is to use only the painted paper egg carton cups and thread them onto the stem; add leaves and display in a vase. You could also add a couple of ladybugs to each flower by hole punching red construction paper. Have the students add 7 black dots with a fine point pen and then gluing them onto their flowers. Turns out really cute.
~ For this last idea, you’ll need yellow paper cupcake liners; you can also use white and yellow ones if you choose. Give the students a large piece of light blue construction paper. Demonstrate how to draw a background scene for the daffodils. Once they’ve completed their background scenes, have them glue 3 yellow or white cupcake liners at various heights across their paper. Then they glue yellow cupcake liners inside the white/yellow ones. Have them cut out 3 stems and 6 leaves from green construction paper. Glue them onto the paper as well, slipping the top of the stems under the daffodil “head”. If you’d like, you can have them add butterflies to the picture also. If you have access to the Ellison die-cut, you can cut them out and just have the students glue them on OR you can have them fold them slightly in half and glue only the body of the butterfly on. This will give the butterfly a 3D effect. Some students may want to glue their butterfly onto the daffodil as if it’s sipping nectar.
Butterfly Art: Demonstrate to your students how to draw a background scene along with a flower garden. You can also use Ellison die-cuts for the flowers if you choose. To make the butterflies for the garden, have your students draw a 1 to 2 inch black line for a the body. Then have them glue on two mini pretzels for the wings (the pretzels will be facing the opposite way) and use their black crayon to draw two antennae. You’ll probably want to demonstrate this before beginning with your students. Allow them to add a couple of butterflies to their garden, and then enjoy some of the pretzels for their effort!
Handprint Flowers:
Trace both of the child’s hands onto construction paper and have them cut them out. Paint a craft stick green. Curl the fingers of each hand onto a pencil forming the petals. Glue one hand to each side of the craft stick with the fingers curled outwards. Have the students decorate a white styrofoam cup using markers or crayons. Stick a small ball of playdough into the bottom of each child’s cup. Stick the stem of the flower into the playdough to keep it upright. If you’d like, you can then stuff shredded green paper, Easter grass, dried grass, hay, or excelsior into the cup to cover the playdough.
More Handprint Art:
Paint each child's palm a different color (the colors of a rainbow), and their fingers green (don't paint the thumb). Stamp the handprint on their paper. Then have them glue tissue paper flowers (to match their palm color) on top of each green finger. They will look like flowerpots with flowers. The flowers are made by twisting the tissue paper up, dipping it into glue, then sticking it onto the paper.
Window Art: Paint each student’s hand with an appropriate flower color. Have them press their hand about a foot above the window sill. This is the flower head. After completing the flower heads, come back with a paint brush and paint on the stems and leaves. To make clean up easier, mix liquid soap in with the tempra paint.
Bulletin Board:
Two - Four - Six - Eight, Meet Me At The Garden Gate! Of course, you’d have to have a garden scene depicted on your bulletin board. You could incorporate birds and bird houses, flowers, wheelbarrows, watering cans, bees and a hive, garden tools, butterflies, ladybugs, etc. This would go really well with a Peter Rabbit garden as well.
Flower Jars: Let children place small amounts of clay in baby food jar lids. Give them small dried or silk flowers to arrange in the clay. Screw the lids to the jars. Tie a ribbon around the necks of the jars and let the children give them as a gift.
Handprint Flowers:
On a large sheet of construction paper (12x18), glue an orange
construction paper circle for the center of the flower. Dip the student's
hand in yellow tempra paint and press on construction paper around circle
overlapping slightly to make flower petals (fingers point outward). Cut and
add green construction paper stem and leaves.
Picture
Flower or Plant
Diagram: One
of the 2nd grade objectives is to be able to read and comprehend a diagram.
You could have students create one of the art projects here and then have
them take it a couple of steps farther by labeling the parts of the
plant/flower and then answering or creating comprehension questions or facts
about the diagram.
Update:
Using a new flower project idea, I did the diagram. Turned
out cute! The flower is made using 1" strips of
construction paper that were folded and stapled on the ends for
the petals. Then they are glued to the back of a circle
cut using the Ellison. A 1" strip for the stem and leaves
handcut from 3" rectangles. Labels printed and cut apart.
(click
on image to enlarge)
Spring
Bunny: The
flowers are made of simple shapes; a good way to tie the art
project to an academic skill :) (This would also make a good
following directions activity as well.. A big square for
the head of the flower, and add a bead of glue around the
edge. Overlap 8 circles around the square, then glue a
smaller square for the center piece. The stem is a long
green rectangle and the leaves are two triangles.
These are
supposed to be displayed in a window, but I hung mine in the
hallway.
(click
on image to enlarge)
ABC
flashcards:
I created these springtime letters just to add some fun to
learning. :) You better get them while they're here
though ... they take up a lot of room on my site and I don't
know how long I'll leave them here. There's a lot of
files because one file would have been HUGE!
ABC
Flashcard Printables
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6
part 7
part 8
Beginning & Ending Sounds Spring Bouquet:
I created this activity to use with my small group of Ks
who's working on beginning & ending sounds. Print the
flowers on colored cardstock or construction paper, cut out
and laminate. Then use magnetic letters or plastic
letter tiles and have students supply the beginning and
ending sounds for each picture name. If you're using
magnetic letters, you can post the flowers on a white board
or oil drip pan. They can even be used as a literacy
work station or center. To extend the activity, have
students copy the words they made onto a response sheet and
draw a picture to match.
Beginning & Ending Sounds Spring Bouquet printables
Short A flowers
Short E flowers
Short I flowers
Short O flowers
Short U flowers
Kites:
I wanted something nice to hang in the hallway, so I came up
with this idea. Made my own writing stationary, then
had the students write about the picture or make up their
own story about a kite. (we did a lesson on writing on
topic beforehand/brainstorming) After they finished
writing their draft story and we edited, they wrote a
"published" copy on the stationary, then got to make the
kite. I started with two 9" squares of
construction paper per student. One square was left
whole, the other was cut into 4 sections. Then each
student was given 4 different colors to glue onto their 9"
square. (points to the center and long sides to the
outside) After it was dry, I stapled 3 strips of crepe
paper on as a tail.

Websites:
Spring @ The Teacher's Bookbag (emergent readers)
http://www.teachersbookbag.com/spring.html
Signs of
Spring
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/pdfs/2006S/060428_bp2.pdf
Work With
Words (printable)
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/pdfs/2004S/040319BP8.pdf
Can Teach
http://www.track0.com/canteach/elementary/songspoems16.html
Kindernet
http://www.kindernetonline.com/marchpg.html
Its Spring - First Grade http://www.ri.net/schools/North_Smithfield/9StudentGalleries/ Itsspring.html
Fall and Spring Ideas
http://www.icomm.ca/daycare/cardsi10.html
Kinderart - April
http://www.kinderart.com/seasons/apr.htm
Flowers
http://members.tripod.com/pippee/flowerban.html
Nuttin but kids - Spring Home
http://www.nuttinbutkids.com/spring.html
House of Hugs - Spring Fling
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/8004/spring.html
Mrs. Bee's "Happy Spring"
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Lake/4482/happyspring.htm
Flowers and Gardens Crafts http://familycrafts.about.com/parenting/familycrafts/cs/ flowersandgarden/index.htm
Flower Coloring Pages
http://www.outer-limit.net/coloring/flowerpages.shtml
Flower Coloring Pages
http://childfun.com/color/flowers.shtml
Hibiscus Coloring Page
http://www.charlotte-florida.com/graphics/Hibiscus.gif
Flower Coloring Page
http://www.charlotte-florida.com/graphics/cb41.jpg Flower Coloring Page
http://www.charlotte-florida.com/graphics/cb42.jpg
Draw Some Flowers
http://www.dragonbbs.com/coloring/Misc/DRWFLWRS_CB.GIF
Baby Minnie in the Flowers
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Island/8026/flowers.html
Why Are There Seasons?
http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/nasa/earth/seasons/seasons1.html
Spring Flowers Clipart
http://www.cstone.net/~bry-back/gardenfun/springflowerclips.html
Spring Printables
http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/spring/print.html
Flower Clipart
http://www.cstone.net/~bry-back/gardenfun/flowerclips.html
Flower and Bird Icons
http://www.cstone.net/~bry-back/gardenfun/fleuricons.html
Spring Crafts
http://www.zoomschool.com/crafts/spring/
My Spring Coloring Book
(printable)
http://www.bry-backmanor.org/actpag35.html
How To Make Layered
Tissue Paper Flowers For Any Occassion!
http://kids.creativity-portal.com/d/projects/tissue.paper.flowers/index.shtml
Flower Crown
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/hats/flowerhat/
Spring Things
(printable)
http://www.kizclub.com/Topics/holiday/springthings.pdf
Spring Puzzle
(printable)
http://www.kizclub.com/Topics/holiday/springpuzzle.pdf
Flower Letters
(printable)
http://www.communication4all.co.uk/Phonics/Flower%20letter%20selection.pdf

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March 2001
updated 5.16.10 |

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