Four Fun Spring Activities for Kids
Celebrate this season with fun spring activities for kids. Bonus: theme-based teaching will help your child develop communication skills.
Spring is in full swing here and I’ve never been more ready for a change in seasons! In my household, we couldn’t wait to store away winter coats and mittens and bring out the swimsuits and shorts. It might still be a bit premature for those, but it’s not too early to get little ones excited for longer days, warmer temps, and all the fun that the changing seasons can bring!
Keep your kids engaged in speech and language learning over the next few months by introducing a spring theme. You’ll get lots of mileage with this one because you can incorporate tons of fun therapy activities for kids.
But first: a note about theme-based teaching.
Why Use Theme-Based Teaching for Speech and Language?
A theme-based teaching approach to curriculum has been popular amongst educators for ages, and we now have research to support its use for teaching speech and language in early childhood.
In 2016, a research study found significantly improved communication skills in preschoolers exposed to thematic curriculum compared to a traditional curricular approach. (1)
Similarly, a 2014 study found enhanced grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary skills in language learners who received theme-based teaching. (2)
Not to mention that themes are fun and contextually significant for little ones!
Fun Spring Activities for Kids
For your spring theme this year, try any or all of the following activities and watch as your child develops a love for bugs, plants, all things pastel, and more.
Work on Categories and Sorting: An Egg Hunt
What you’ll need:
Get a bunch of those plastic brightly-colored eggs. (I actually keep these in my therapy stash year round because kids love them!) You can find them in major grocery stores during this time of year. Next, find little items that will fit in the plastic eggs. Try to make these items sortable. Think coins of different sizes, jelly beans of different colors, or pictures of different bugs and flowers. The options are endless! Finally, get a bowl or basket.
Set up and complete the activity:
Fill the eggs with one item in each. Hide the eggs around your house or your yard –– if the weather’s decent! Tell your child to find as many eggs as they can. Once they’ve collected them all, sit down on the floor and help them open the eggs and sort the contents within them.
Scale the difficulty:
If your child is new to categories and sorting, make sure the items in the eggs only differ by one characteristic. For example, use only yellow and blue jelly beans. This will make the sorting process simpler! If your child is ready for a challenge, fill the eggs with items that can be sorted into multiple categories –– or categories within categories. For example, your child might sort jelly beans from coins before sorting the jelly beans by color and the coins by size.
Optional bonus:
If you’ve filled the eggs with treats like jellybeans, allow your child to sample one from each category. Use language like “The red one is yummy!” or “These are sweet.” Or help them guess the flavors!
Target Sequencing and Storytelling: Spring Cycle Stories
What you’ll need:
Grab our pack of Spring Sequencing Cards! This digital download comes with five different stories: frog life cycle, butterfly life cycle, growing tomatoes, going on a picnic, and growing carrots. Choose those that your child will find most interesting!
Set up and complete the activity:
Print and cut out the cards from your chosen stories. Scatter the cards in front of your child and prompt them to sequence them. Try language such as, “Which one comes first?” or “What happens next?”
Scale the difficulty:
Each story comes with three different levels of difficulty. If your child is new to sequencing, start with the 3-card sequences and provide modeling as needed. If they’re ready for a challenge, grab the 6-card sequences and have them tell the story after they’ve sequenced the cards!
Optional bonus:
Extend the learning by bringing the sequence to life! Buy a packet of seeds and try growing carrots. Or, if you want to really go for it, get a caterpillar hatching kit and watch them grow into butterflies!
Work on Labeling and Sentence Building: Egg Hunt Book
What you’ll need:
If your family celebrates Easter, try our Egg Hunt interactive digital books. Your child will love spotting the hidden item on each page, and you’ll love the labeling and sentence-building opportunities it provides.
Set up and complete the activity:
Read the story with your child. Search for the hidden item together. You can add language such as “I wonder what we’ll find,” or “What’s hiding?” Encourage your child to label the hidden item.
Scale the difficulty:
Our digital version is complete with three difficulty levels to accommodate a range of abilities. Reduce the number of available answers if your child needs a narrow field of choices to accurately label the items. Also, let your child label verbally or by pointing to the provided icons.
Optional bonus:
Prepare for an egg hunt yourselves by dying Easter eggs! Little hands love helping with this fun seasonal activity. Grab a kit at the store or try natural “dyes” like beet juice, blueberry juice, and turmeric.
Target Speech and Phonemic Awareness: Find It Fast Spring
What you’ll need:
Download our spring version of the favorite Find It Fast game. You can choose to print the materials or access them digitally via the Boom card deck.
Set it up:
First, choose the skill you’re targeting and find the relevant cards. I love Find It Fast because of its ability to target speech (initial and final sounds) and phonemic awareness (rhyming, syllables, segmenting, and more). But language goals are also welcome! Once you’ve identified the appropriate cards, place them in front of your child. Elicit the target behavior with a prompt. This might look like a point, a direct model (e.g., “Say, ‘basket’), or a question (e.g., “What do you put Easter eggs in when you go on a hunt?”).
Scale the difficulty:
If your child is struggling to accurately produce the speech sounds in a word, try breaking it down into syllables or even individual sounds. When they’re ready for a challenge, ask them to use the word in a sentence or a story! Make sure the speech sounds stay sharp.
Optional bonus:
Extend this activity and provide your child with hours of entertainment. Print an additional set of cards, cut out all the fun spring items. Laminate and cut them out once more. Next, stick a velcro dot to the back of each. Finally, make a felt board with a scrap of cardboard, a big piece of felt, and a stapler. Now your child has a spring felt board to play with!
Theme-based Teaching + Spring Activities for Kids = a Perfect Pair
So next time you’re struggling to drum up new ideas for therapy that are contextually significant, consider implementing a theme-based teaching approach.
And, this season, make sure you include these fun spring activities for kids.
Because before you know it, we’ll be enjoying summer.
