The transition to spring weather is the perfect time to start thinking about refreshing your outdoor early learning curriculum. Children always love exploring the colors, textures, and patterns of nature, and the return of warm weather, seasonal birds, and budding leaves and flowers makes outdoor play especially inviting.
This article features spring-themed activities that invite children to create using items from nature that they’ve collected outside.
This fun, budget-friendly art project requires just a few supplies, which you might already have handy — spray bottles (clear is best so children can see the colors inside), food coloring, and construction paper. Encourage children to collect a variety of natural items for this activity, such as rocks, twigs, sticks, and leaves. Mix water and food coloring in each of the spray bottles and shake. Invite children to arrange their nature collections on the paper, and then spray the food-color paint over them. When they remove the items, the paper will be filled with a variety of shapes.
Older children might enjoy making hypotheses about what the paper will look like after spraying, and which items will resist the spray paint.
Creating tree bark rubbings is a fun way for children to explore the textures of different trees. This activity can be part of a nature walk or done in your yard– all that is needed are crayons, paper, and some nearby trees. Encourage the children to make bark rubbings on a variety of trees and to compare the different patterns. While children are engaged in the activity, you might take a few photos of the trees so that you can display the photos next to the bark rubbings in your classroom.
Click here for more information about this activity, as well as additional ideas for engaging children in tree and texture exploration.
Plastic water bottles can become storage containers for children to use as they collect rocks, flower petals, leaves, twigs, and any other special items they find in nature. Similar to the activity above, this project can be done on a nature walk or in your yard. And, placing small items into the small bottle top openings is an engaging fine motor activity for young children who are developing the muscles in their hands and fingers. Children love to find “treasures” or special items outside, and this activity allows them to store them in a special place that can be revisited.
Click here to read more about this activity.
With clear contact paper and paper plates, children can display some of their favorite nature items in the form of a suncatcher. Simply cut out the center of a paper plate to make a frame and tape clear contact paper inside. When children stick flowers, leaves and other colorful natural materials onto the contact paper, the result is a colorful suncatcher.
Click here to find more information about setting up this activity.
For older children, you might check out this link to learn how to create flower mandalas (see image to the right).
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