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

I volunteer at my local library pulling holds for children’s books, and the other day someone was looking for Over and Under the Snow, a lovely picture book about animals that hibernate and those who don’t.

It reminded me that now would be a good time to talk about hibernation in the classroom, and what animals do to survive the winter more generally.

Did you know that technically only warm-blooded animals hibernate? When cold-blooded animals do it, it’s called brumation, and insects experience diapause. Whatever you call it, it’s a slowing down of bodily functions that allows animals to lower their body temperatures and slow their metabolism so much they don’t need to eat.

We Are Teachers has a great page about different animals that hibernate (or brumate, or diapause) and you can enter your email address to get a set of free worksheets perfect for middle grades. Education.com also has a downloadable worksheet about hibernation, and you can find many more (including the migrate or hibernate worksheet above) from Worksheeto.

Little Bins for Little Hands has a great free printable pack about hibernation and hibernating animals. There’s a good list of animals that hibernate in the post, as well as some FAQs about hibernation.

Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds has lots of great ideas for planning a hibernation theme, including making a cave in the classroom, painting on ice, and lots of ideas for dramatic play, writing and other activities (and there are lots of freebies linked there).

Little ones will love these bear hibernation hat printables form Books and Giggles that include facts about hibernation.

STEMHax has collected a bunch of lesson planning resources about animals in winter, based on the book Animals in Winter. You’ll find links to videos about different animals featured in the book that you can use when talking about the book or more broadly in a winter animal unit study.

The Wolfe Pack Den has a free printable unit study and ideas for books to read and other things to do (with a particular emphasis on hedgehogs, if you’re into that).

And to bring in one more book recommendation from when my girl was little, Bear Snores On is another fun one, and you can read that one and bring out all your fun bear activities, like this adorable hibernating bear craft from Krokotak.

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