Spring is upon us! The weather is finally warmer, the snow has melted, flowers are blooming, and summer break is just around the corner. Hallelujah! Spring is my favorite season. There’s just something about putting the winter-themed activities away and replacing them with rainbows, butterflies, and flowers. It just brings a smile to my face!
I’ve always loved being able to incorporate seasons and holidays into the activities we do in the classroom. My Kindergarten kiddos are always so excited about upcoming events, holidays, or simply changes in the weather so it just seems natural to put that enthusiasm towards learning. The local dollar store and the Dollar Spot at Target are some of my favorite go-to places for finding seasonal or holiday supplies to make our learning fun. If you follow my blog, you know that I do a lot of DIY activities using the treasures I find!
Make a Splash
I found these frog erasers at the Dollar Spot in Target. They make the cutest little manipulatives for addition and subtraction practice. But what’s a frog without a pond?! So, I made a pond to help us create equations about frogs swimming, hopping, and playing! After I model, students take turns coming up with their own addition or subtraction stories while we act them out on the mat. We record the equation to match at the bottom. I laminated the pond mats so that we can use a dry erase marker to record our equations.
I also made a practice page for some additional reinforcement. You could have students complete this for morning work, homework, or as part of the small group activity. Students read the word problems and create an addition or subtraction sentence to match.
This activity would work with any frog manipulatives you might already have in your classroom. You can download the activity mat and practice page by clicking on the picture. If you don’t have frog manipulatives, no worries: I’ve got you covered! I included some frog cutouts in the download that you can print, cut, and laminate.
A Series of Centers & Packets
It’s All Fun and Games is probably one of my most favorite series that I’ve made so far. There is a unit for each month (Aug/Sept – May), and the skills build upon each other as the series progresses. The format is similar throughout the packs, so you’re not having to re-explain directions. Each month contains 20+ math and literacy activities that are very low prep and perfect for centers, small groups, and partner games. Students use spinners, dice, and cubes to complete the activities, which keeps them super engaged!
The pictured activity comes from the spring packet. It’s a twist on number word practice. Students spin the spinner and read the number word. They find the matching number on their paper and color the vegetable to match the color of the number word on the spinner. You’ll find throughout these packets that students use color codes to show their answers so that you can easily check their work!
My newest series is called 6 Pack Centers. Each 6 Pack center packet contains 3 literacy centers, 3 math centers, and 6 no-prep practice pages to reinforce the skills covered in the center activities. Each activity includes teacher friendly directions, answer keys, and “I Can” visual directions for students.
This activity comes from the 6 Pack Centers: Spring Edition. Phoneme substitution can be a difficult skill for some students to master. Here’s a great activity for those little guys that need just a little extra practice. To complete this activity, students read the word at the top of the card and then change the beginning sound to spell the word/picture at the bottom. They match the number on the card to their recording sheet and write the new word that they made.
Write the Room activities are a great way to get kids up and moving around the classroom. I whipped up this Write the Room activity to practice CVC words. To spice it up and make it festive, I wrote the CVC words on die cut shapes. Any die cut shape will work perfectly for this. But just adding the simple seasonal shape makes this a fun and festive activity that your students will love. Students walk around the room and look for the umbrellas. They read the CVC word and write it down next to the matching picture.
You can easily differentiate this activity by using two different colors. Students looking for the yellow umbrellas will unscramble the CVC word and record it next to the matching picture.
A Little Dab’ll Do Ya
The no-prep bingo dabber pages from the series A Dab of Learning are always such a hit! Teachers love them because they’re no-prep, kids love them because… well, they get to use bingo dabbers! There’s nine packets in this series and the skills within each packet spiral so students are introduced to new concepts while still having opportunities to practice skills that have been previously taught.
This activity comes from the packet A Dab of Learning: Spring Edition. As teachers, we know and understand the importance of providing activities that offer repetition. The challenge is to provide multiple activities so that students do not become bored. That’s one of the reasons I love using bingo dabbers in the classroom. It’s fun and exciting for kids! So often I hear from teachers, “My kids love this so much that they don’t realize they are learning”. Isn’t that what we want for our students? Of course it is! In the example, students are practicing CVC words in a way that is fun for them. Students say the name of the CVC word, dab the letters to spell the word, and then record it on the line.
I hope you’ve found these activities to be helpful and useful. As educators, it’s always fun and exciting to find new ideas for teaching our students. I hope that you’ll be able to incorporate them into your classroom and that your students enjoy some seasonal activities while they have fun learning! Wishing you and your classroom a fun and happy spring!
Melissa is a Kindergarten teacher and Teacher-Author from Wisconsin. She authors the blog The Printable Princess. She has a passion for creating high-quality resources that are both developmentally appropriate and fun for primary students. Melissa lives in Wisconsin with her husband and 8-year-old daughter. You can visit her on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
