Spring Outdoor Activities for Kids

spring outdoor activities for kids

I hope if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere that it’s getting warm enough where you live to add in some outdoor activities with the kids. It’s easy to do a lot of learning outside when the weather is nice; my daughter has a fond memory of doing long division in sidewalk chalk at her school. But if you need some more specific ideas, here are some fun and educational spring outdoor activities for kids to do at home or at school.

Gather some glass bottles, rocks and other natural materials to make a garden xylophone with these instructions from The Moments at Home. This looks so fun, and you can use this idea to make musical instruments with other objects you find around the home/classroom/playground too.

This post from Child’s Play ABC has a lot of great outdoor learning ideas for kids, but the one I wanted to highlight is going on a rainbow scavenger hunt. Kids can collect things of different colors and see if they can make a rainbow (or just sort things by color). Check out more ideas for scavenger hunts.

Another good activity to do with things you collect from outdoors is making natural paint brushes. Get the instructions from Messy Little Monster, and of course you can test them out by painting outside, too.

Speaking of art, have you ever made paint from dandelions? (I dyed yarn with dandelions once, and it was a lot of fun.) Learn how from Little Cooks Reading Books, and then you can use your natural paintbrushes along with natural paint!

You can also paint with mud, like in this post from There’s Just One Mommy. Or make an outdoor, garden themed sensory bin with real dirt like this one from Mess for Less.

Or kids can gather materials to help them build their own nests as they learn about how birds and other animals build nests. The Crazy Outdoor Mama has a printable and post that will help.

What activities do you love to do with kids when it’s nice outside?

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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