Spring and Easter Themed Nature Crafts

As the weather starts to get a bit warmer in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s time to start heading outside for nature walks and collecting natural materials for projects. Here are some great ideas for using natural materials on spring and Easter projects.

Let kids explore what it’s like to be a bird by giving them the challenge to create a nest using only natural materials and no adhesives. This idea comes from Kids Craft Room and it gives you a chance to collect materials, construct your nests, talk about and watch birds (or find bird nest building videos), even crafty tiny eggs or birds to go into the nest.

Put the kids to work collecting all the little fallen twigs in the yard and then you can craft with them. DIY Candy has collected 20+ craft ideas using twigs, and while they aren’t all suitable for kids (at least not without supervision), they should give you some good ideas for how to use sticks in your crafting.

Mother Natured used blown eggs to decorate with natural materials for a pretty and long-lasting Easter decoration. You could do the same thing with plastic or papier mache eggs if you have those on hand.

Or you can use egg shapes cut out of cardboard and decorate them with natural materials, like in this post from Sprouting Wild Ones. Or gather materials and make egg-shaped pieces of clay — or really any shape you like — and use the plant matter to make prints in the clay and paint them when they are dry. My Bright Ideas Blog shows you how.

Arts and Bricks has a cute collection of nature crafts for Easter, too. I particularly like the leaves cut like eggs and then painted or otherwise decorated, which is shown above with a picture from Learning and Exploring Through Play.

Need even more Easter and spring nature craft ideas? Check out this list from The Magic Onions.

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Bird Learning Activities for Kids

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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