Celebrating Spring

Today was the first day of Spring.  You wouldn't know it by looking out the window, since we still have over a foot of snow. Thankfully Mother Goose Time provided a bonus day for Spring this month, so we were still able to do Spring activities.  We started by talking about animals that hibernate.  The girls pretended to hibernate, and then they would wake up and pretend to be different animals from the provided cards.

hibernating children

studying the animal cards

After we were done with this I read We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  This is one of my favorite kids books so I was happy I was able to work it into the lesson.  After we finished the book we built a cave out of couch cushions, pillows, and blankets.  I put a bear in it and we reenacted the book.  The girls loved playing in the cave and we even read some more books in it with flashlights later on.  After they were done with the cave we took turns hiding stuffed bears and hunting for them.

acting crazy in the cave

Next we talked about how spring also means to jump.  I spread sight words out of the floor and would call them out for Addie to jump to.  This was a great way to review the words she's been learning.  Making reading active was a lot of fun for her;  she asked if we could play it again.

 When it starts to warm up bugs start to appear.  We have lots of books about bugs, but I picked There Are Bugs to read with the girls.  It has a great photo identification spread at the end of the book that I thought would help for our next activity.

After we read the book the girls made fingerprints using an ink pad.  Then they decorated the fingerprints, turning them into different bugs.

The last thing we did to celebrate Spring was read Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms.  Then the girls made their own blossom trees by gluing paper scraps onto a tree outline. 

About a month from now the snow will be melted and we'll be able to actually go outside and enjoy the Spring weather.

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