Spring Crafts and Activities

Spring has sprung and now it’s time to take in all the newness in the air. Here are some fun spring themed crafts you can do with your preschooler.

Bouquet of Handprint Flowers

Here’s yet another idea for using those precious little hands for something other than making a mess! Parents will love this because anything with handprints of their children show how they’ve great and are great keepsakes. This is an adorable craft that’s not too messy. You’ll need to help the children with the tracing and cutting.

Supplies You’ll Need:

• paper plate
• Colored construction paper (the more colors the better)
• Glue stick
• Pencil
• Scissors

How to create your bouquet:

1. Trace the children’s hands at least 10 times on different colored construction paper.

2. Cut the handprints out.

3. Use the glue stick to glue the handprint outlines, with fingers pointing out, around the edges of the paper plate.

4. Glue the next set of hand outlines (again, fingers pointed OUT) a few inches inside of the first circle of hands.

5. Continue this pattern until all the handprints have been glued to the paper plate.

6. Cut a small circle out of a piece of construction paper and place it in the middle of the “flower” and fluff your petals.

7. Once everyone in the class has completed their flower, stick them all on the wall and make a classroom flower garden or bouquet for everyone to see. When it’s time to take them down send them home for parents to save.

Alphabet

Teach your preschool child the alphabet with these crafts and activities.

26 Letters of the Alphabet on the Wall

Young students love to sing! While singing this tune, the students will learn to count to 26 and learn the alphabet.

Making the playing board will be your first task. Make 26 large letter cards with bright colored construction paper in the shape of the individual letters of the alphabet. Hang or tape each letter card on a display board or wall. The students can then take them down as they progress through the song.

Together, the class will sing the following tune: “There are 26 letters in the alphabet…. 26 letters in all….. take the “A” down and pass it around…. There’s 25 letters in the alphabet!” While the tune is being sung, the first student goes to the board and takes down the letter “A” and hands it to another student to pass around the class. The turn is then passed to a second student. Keeping with the tune, the class will sing the song to reflect only 25 letters and taking down the letter “B” and ending up with only 24 letters in the alphabet. Again, the second student goes to the board and removes the “B”, and passes it around. This activity continues through until all 26 letters of the alphabet have been passed around the room.

Go Letters

Teaching young students the alphabet can be trying at times. By putting a new twist on an old favorite it can make this necessary activity fun and enjoyable.

The first thing to do is make a deck of cards. Assign each student a selected letter of the alphabet. Using pre-cut squares of construction paper have each student make five cards. With a crayon they can correctly write their assigned letter on each card. Depending on the size of the class, you may have to assign additional letters or make cards yourself. This will assure there are enough cards to go around.

Once the cards are prepared collect all the cards and place them in a paper sack. Shake the sack to “shuffle” the deck making sure they are well mixed. Place the students in a circle and deal the cards, giving each three cards to start the game. The remainder of the cards will remain in the sack. The key to the game is to match like items together to make pairs.

The first student will ask another student if they have a letter that matches one in their own hand. If the second student has it, they must give it to the first student. If they do not, the first student must draw one card out of the sack. Once a student has a matched pair of letters they lay them down face up. This continues around the circle until everyone gets a turn. If a student is left with no cards on their turn they request a random letter. The game continues until all the cards are paired. The winner of the game is the student that ends with the most matched pairs.

Sandpaper Letters

Cut large letters out of sandpaper. The textures are very helpful for learning.

Play-Doh Letters

Help your child form each letter of the alphabet out of play-doh.

Crafts by Letter:

• Letter-A
• Letter-B
• Letter-C
• Letter-D
• Letter-E
• Letter-F
• Letter-G
• Letter-H
• Letter-I
• Letter-J
• Letter-K
• Letter-L
• Letter-M
• Letter-N
• Letter-O
• Letter-P
• Letter-Q
• Letter-R
• Letter-S
• Letter-T
• Letter-U
• Letter-V
• Letter-W
• Letter-X
• Letter-Y
• Letter-Z

Mother’s & Father’s Day Crafts and Activities

Kids love to share the love with Mom and Dad on their special days. Here are some craft and activity ideas for your preschool class to help make their parent’s day just as special as they are!

Mom & Dad Rock! Paper Weights

Here’s a perfect gift for your preschoolers to make for their mommy and daddy. It’s a paperweight that exclaims how cool Mom and Dad are!

Supplies:

• Smooth rock about the size of a fist (one for each child)
• Soapy water and a scrub brush
• Paint brush
• Acrylic paint
• Black Sharpie
• Optional: Clear coat spray paint
• Glitter pens

Prior to creating this gift, the rocks will need to be washed and dried. You can have the children do this or you can clean each child’s rock the night before.

Once it’s good and dry, paint the rock all over with one color acrylic paint.  You may want to apply a second coat once the first has dried if the color didn’t completely cover the rock.

After the second coat (or first if not applying a second) is dried thoroughly, you can glitter the rock with glitter paint or speckle it by lightly tapping a paintbrush with a different colored paint over the rock.

Have the children write “Dad Rocks”, “Mom Rocks” or “You Rock” on their paperweight with the glitter pen. Allow the rocks to dry overnight.

The next day you can outline the writing with a black marker.

Optional: You can spray the paperweight with a clear coat paint to keep it from peeling and to make it last a lot longer.

Tip: When you send the paperweights home, you may want to place them in a small bag to keep the glitter from getting all over everything in the children’s book bags.

Earth Day Crafts and Activities

Earth Day Crafts are such fun for kids. Teach the kids about the Earth and introduce some recycling and environmentalism while remaining age-appropriate.

Celebrate Earth Day with the Zoo

We celebrate Earth Day on April 22.  This is a special day to show our appreciation for our earth and all it has to offer us.  Preschoolers need to learn early about our earth, how precious it is and what makes it that way.

One way to celebrate and learn about Earth day is by taking a trip to the zoo.  Now you may not have a zoo close by or even be able to take your preschoolers on a trip to the zoo but you can bring the zoo to them right in your classroom.

Find stuffed animals that represent the different animals found in a zoo.  Look at the dollar store, rummage sales or even ask the children to bring in stuffed animals they may have at home.  Try to get as many different animals as you can find.  This will help create a more realistic zoo.

Use cardboard to make your zoo areas.  You can draw on the cardboard to duplicate the habitat of different animals. Some animals live in trees, some in the desert, and some in grass or high weeds and so on.  It doesn’t have to be fancy just enough so the children get the drift of how these animals live.  Place your animals around the room as they might be found in a zoo atmosphere.

Find books that talk about the different animals and how they affect our earth.  Point out each animal in your make believe zoo.  Have the children discuss what they know about each animal and their environment.

Let the kids walk around the zoo.  They can talk to each other about the animals and feel as if they are really right at the zoo.  Just let them enjoy their little trip.  Top the day off with a snack of popcorn and peanuts.  No trip to the zoo is complete without those snacks.

Giving your preschoolers an idea of why Earth Day is so important can only start them on the right track of doing their part to help our earth continue to prosper.  Showing them why animals are so important to this is one way of letting them know everything has a purpose on our great earth.

Plants Are an Important Part of Earth Day

Plants are a very important part of keeping our earth healthy.  Children love to learn about plants, flowers and even trees. It peaks there interest and they want to know we have them. Earth Day is a great day to talk to your preschoolers about our earth and the necessity for all the plants we have in our world.

Use books to help explain to the children about different plants.  There are many types of books that have pictures of different plants and explain them in very simple detail.  You may think your preschoolers aren’t interested in seeing a plant but they are.  They watch Mom and Dad in the garden or planting flowers and they want to know why.  Books can help them to understand the why.

Take them outside and point out the different types of plants, flowers and trees.  Not only will they get a kick out of seeing these but they may find things that are a surprise. Like a squirrel in a tree or a worm in the grass.  This will definitely peak their interest and will start the questions rolling.

Help them to plant their own plant.  It doesn’t take much. A Styrofoam cup, some dirt and a few seeds are all they need.  Show them how to fill their cup with the dirt. Talk to them about how the dirt is important for the seeds to root and grow.  Find a book that shows how the plant progresses from start to finish.  These pictures will give them an idea of what they can expect as their plants grow.

Let them plant their own seeds in the dirt.  Walk them through how to place the seed in the dirt and push it down so it can get the nutrients it needs to begin to grow.  Help them water their plant and let them know it’s necessary to continue to water their plant if they want it to grow into a pretty flower.  As the plants grow talk to them about what stages they are in and how the plant will bud and then finally be a flower.

Kids may act like they don’t care about the world around them especially that plant growing in the window.  In reality it does peak their interest and they do want to understand why they are important.  If nothing else they want to know how to make those flowers grow so they can give Mom that pretty bouquet to set on the table.  Teaching them the significance of plants to our earth at an early age will insure they are responsible in helping to keep our earth alive and healthy forever.

Letter U Crafts and Activities

What Starts with this Letter?

• Ukulele
• Umbrella
• Underwear
• Unicorn

Draw a big Letter U and glue pictures of things that start with this letter.