Even in ‘lockdown’ I hope you are managing to get out in the sunshine to enjoy awakening of Spring. Here are some simple ideas that can be resourced from your Spring garden or on your local walks to keep the children engaged and interested in the environment around them.
Spring-Colour Match
Simple idea created using paints, an egg box and Spring flowers.
My 4 year old enjoyed the challenge of making different colours using just red, yellow and blue. It was a good opportunity to teach him the primary colours and how to make secondary colours. We also discussed how to lighten and darken colours, adding white for the finishing touches.
My 2 year old enjoyed picking flowers from our garden and the best part was collecting them in a little pot. I then placed the flowers on a tray in front of her to choose from and match with the corresponding colours in the egg box.
Finally, my 4 year old then had to check she had matched these correctly (he did make the colours!).
Ducks and Dandelions
Outdoors ‘Noughts and Crosses’ game drawn out using chalks with an added Spring twist of ‘ducks and dandelions’. Good way to get rid of your dandelions!
Row, Row, Row your boat gently down the stream…
Before sorting our rubbish for recycling we put aside any interesting or unusual boxes and materials to make boats out of. All we needed extra was sellotape, scissors, stickers (to decorate) and a few characters to sail the boats (we had a some chicks and lambs left over from Easter bonnets). Then… 3, 2, 1 off they sailed down the river! (you could use a paddling pool, tuff spot or even the bath tub).
Dandelion Play dough
My 2 year old can’t stop picking dandelions (a theme is emerging here!). They are her favourite colour and remind her of the sun (she’s also allowed to pick them)
What you need:
Handful of Dandelion
1 cup of boiling water
2 cups of flour
1/3 cup of salt
2 tsp of baby or vegetable oil
1-2 tsp of cream of Tartar
Method:
1. Mix hot water and dandelions in a blender.
2. Once the dandelions have been shredded and mixed into the water, transfer the water to a bowl and add in oil, salt, and cream of tartar (give it a good stir to dissolve the salt).
3. Add in 2 cups of flour to the mixture and keep stirring until it is fully mixed.
4. Then get messy and use your hands to mix some more. If it is sticky sprinkle in some more flour and knead until it no longer sticks. The amount of flour that you may need to mix in will vary based on how much water the dandelions were holding.
5. Have fun and play!
A touch of Spring
Make your own sensory tubs (smell and touch) using plants and herbs from the garden or on your walks and any left over foods or spices which smell nice. I put the following into containers but you could use boxes: feathers, bark, mowed grass, orange, lemon and lime peel, wild garlic, mud, dandelions (flower head for smell and seeds for touch), lavender, rosemary, blossom and bluebells.
The children were blind folded and had to smell and/or touch natural objects inside the tubs and guess what they were. My 2-year old was allowed to match what she sensed to an item she could see whereas my 4-year old just made a good guess! We then added the tubs to our Mud Kitchen.
Flower Pressing
A traditional way to preserve Spring flowers which can be used to create pictures, bookmarks or greeting cards. We are planning on making Grannan a birthday card with the flowers pressed but also a rainbow to remind us of the sign of hope displayed in children’s windows during the COVID-19 outbreak (end product coming soon!)
If you don’t have a Flower Press Kit you can place your flowers onto any absorbent paper, with corrugated card on top and then place in between 4 heavy books. Ideally, the flowers should be left like this for 3 weeks.
- Please remember to use flowers from your garden if possible as…
- You should only pick one flower out of every twenty
- You should pick flowers from patches where there are lots of flowers, leaving plenty for others to enjoy.
- It’s illegal to “dig up” a wild plant (that doesn’t belong to you).
Hot Cross Buns
Find recipe at: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/hot-cross-buns
Chocolate Cornflake Nests
Find recipe at: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cooking-kids-chocolate-cornflake-cakes-0
Sleeping Bunnies
‘Sleeping Bunnies’ Nursery Rhyme played out in the long grass using using corresponding animal masks. We also played ‘Hide and Seek’ You get the idea!
Find the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM_uwRRBwGE
Resturants re-open (and they’re cheap!)
During ‘lockdown’ I had good clear out of my cupboards and found lots of herbs, spices, rice and pasta out of date. Rather than throwing it away I gave them to my children to use in their Mud Kitchen and they played with it for hours. They loved the novelty of using ‘real’ ingredients and sprinkling it on top of everything!
They made a herb soup, strawberry jam and a chocolate cake with strawberry sauce. My 2-year old helped me set a table up afterwards with plates, cups and cutlery and the Mud Kitchen soon became a restaurant! My 4-year old then took the orders and bought food to the table to be served. Tasty!
Painting with food (inspired by The Hungry Caterpillar)
We spotted a Caterpillar in our garden and decided to read the Hungry Caterpillar, dress up and make a cosy home for it filled with food of course!
We used fruit and berries and soon realised how messy our hands were. Our fingers had turned purple and pink! This gave us the idea to try painting with the fruits.
My 4 year old had fun mashing up the berries with a mortar and pestle and my 2 year old enjoyed using her hands. We then used paintbrushes and experimented with the different colours on paper. The paintings smelt delicious!
An ‘Eggcellent’ idea and so simple!
Paint or draw on hard boiled eggs. We did this at Easter but it could be based on Spring animals by adding additional features such as rabbit ears or chicken feet out of cardboard and stuck on.
You could hide the eggs in the garden, make a birds nests for them or simply have fun egg rolling!
We also used eggs for making ‘Cress Heads’ see how below!
What you need:
Empty eggshells
Cress seeds
Cotton wool
Pens
Googly eyes (optional)
Method:
1. Draw faces on the eggshells (you can add googly eyes if you have them).
2. Fill the eggshells with cotton wool.
3. Spray the cotton wool with water so that it is nice and damp.
4. Sprinkle lots of cress seeds on top of the cotton wool.
5. Spray more water on the seeds.
6. Water every day and the cress will grow!