Helping Children Welcome Spring

Discover Changes in Nature - Get Ready!

 Adults can help their children discover the changing seasons by sharing the excitement of watching for signs of spring. You will need vases, water, sprigs of bushes and trees, books about spring and seasons.

   Read some books together about spring.  Talk about the seasons. Then on a nice day take a walk in your yard or neighborhood.  Look for signs of spring. On rainy days notice how water runs down hill, forms puddles of water when it is backed up by sticks, or soaks into sand.  Push away mulch in the flower garden and look for any bulbs sending up shoots.  Are there any very early flowers blooming?  Can you find any green grass?  Are farmers or gardeners preparing to plant?

  Cut some branches off a few bushes like willows or dogwood and bring them inside where it is warmer. If you cut some forsythia branches, they should produce yellow 

Children Learn By Observing Nature

flowers. Put the branches in a vase of water.  Notice how the branches have little closed buds. If you have time, take a photo or draw and color a picture that shows the branches on the first day.  Over the next week or two, watch what is happening to the branches and keep the vase filled with fresh water. Where is the water going? Talk about the buds getting bigger and becoming leaves. You could take another photo or draw a final picture to show what has happened.  Later, on a warm day, check around the yard to see if the buds are growing on the trees or if any new leaves are appearing.  Check around the garden to see if spring flowers are blooming. Take along a magnifying glass for a closer look.

Flower Beds

What's Happening in the Flower Beds??

Check what is happening in the flower beds.  Are the bulbs growing?  Are there some flower buds beginning to show?  Watch for birds building nests or finding worms for their new babies.  Can you find any bugs flying or crawling around? What is the weather like in spring? What happened to the snow? When can you plant vegetables or flowers in the garden?

   Provide children with a small rake to help carefully remove old leaves.  They can pick up sticks in the lawn and count them during spring clean up. Winter leaves paper and other garbage behind. Spring is a good time to fill a bag with litter during neighborhood walks. Write down the different kinds of garbage you find. Can some of it be recycled?

How Will This Help My Child?

Children will be learning to observe nature.  They will be developing new vocabulary words about seasons and parts of a plant, as well as first-hand knowledge about the changing seasons. For more see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com; wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Season; Facebook, and Pinterest.

photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos 

Helping Children Look for Firsts and Lasts

Spring Is a Time of Firsts and Lasts

Spring is a time of first and lasts.  Since young children are natural scientist and detectives, searching for change during this time of year is a great game to play. They sharpen their observation, writing, and drawing skills. Searching and record keeping can take many forms.

Looking for Firsts

  Families can sit down together with a spiral notebook or papers staples together and think of signs of spring. Make a list of signs and predict the days they will occur.  If you want to bet, the winner can earn a silly reward or some serious money like a nickel.

  What will be on your list?  How about the first time a spot in your yard has no snow? When will the first robin or flock of birds, first rabbit, or first deer appear?  When is the first time you can visit the park and go down the slide? When will the snow be entirely out of your yard or out of the woods?  When will the ice be gone from a lake or river in your area or on a mountain? When will you see the first tree buds and leaves? When does the temperature first hit 60 or 70 degrees.  Think of signs in your particular area that signal a definite change in the weather by what people wear or do?

A Lists of Lasts

  Now make a list of lasts and write them in your notebook or on a calendar—last snowfall, last time to wear a winter jacket, or last time to shovel.

Make Lots of Lists

  You can keep score of who makes the best predictions and do this as a new tradition every spring.

   The idea of prediction and record keeping was made famous by Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” His company printed it from 1732 to 1758 and helped make him a very rich man. It contained a calendar, weather, predictions, astronomy, and daily advice for living frugally and well borrowed from religious books and writers through the ages.

  The “Old Farmers’ Almanac” founded in 1792 continues to this day.  It carries on the tradition of an almanac which is a book about anything and everything deemed useful.  It has the dates when it is best to cut your hair, lose weight, end projects, and have dental care. You name it.  It’s an almanac!

Is It Spring, Yet?

This past winter the forecast was “winter will be warmer than normal, with the coldest periods in late November, early and late December, early January, and early February. Precipitation and snowfall will be below normal, with the snowiest periods in mid- to late December and early to mid-February. April and May will be cooler than normal, with normal precipitation.”

  For more fun activities see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com and wnmufm.org/Learning Through the Seasons, on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Pop! Bubbles are Fun

Dry spring days are good for playing with bubbles:

What you will need:

 The ingredients for the following bubble recipe which you will mix gently:

1/4 cup liquid dishwashing detergent

 3/4 cup cold water

5 drops of glycerin (available at most drugstores or cake supply stores) or light corn syrup. This helps the bubbles be stronger. The solution gets better with age!

You will also need some objects with holes (or create your own) and a container for mixing as well as a flat shallow container.

What to do:

  Using the recipe for making bubbles, Gracie and I poured the ingredients into a container and stirred gently. We let the solution sit while we hunted for objects that had holes in them. We found a fly swatter, a colander, a slotted spoon, an apple slicer, a straw, and a spatula with holes. I dug up some pipe cleaners that we bent as well as an old hanger.

   Gracie helped me pour some of the bubble solution into a cake pan so we could dip the objects into the solution. We covered the container with the extra bubble solution to save for another day. Together we carried everything outside to the back yard. We dipped and waved each object. It was fun to watch Gracie as she experimented with each object. We made guesses as we used each object as to what size bubble or how many bubbles we would see as we waved the objects in the air. Then we wondered if we twirled would we get different bubbles. So then we experimented with that idea.

  We discussed the idea of trying to catch a bubble on an object or our soapy hands. We studied it until it broke. Gracie and I talked about the colors we could see in some of the bubbles. That led Gracie to ask if we could add color to the solution and so we added some food coloring. Different colors appeared. We played until the solution in the cake pan was gone. Clean up was easy as everything just needed water to be clean again.

How will this help children?

Experimenting is a great way to explore the young child’s world. It allows for mistakes, as well as successes. Experimenting also allows for rich discussion on what might happen, what did happen and why did it happen? That is science, after all. It is a great way to problem solve as well.

What else can I do?

You can visit the local library and look for books about bubbles. A few suggestions are: “Bubble Trouble” by Margaret Mahy and Polly Dunbar, ‘Bubble Trouble “by Joy N. Hulme and Mike Cressy,” Benny’s Big Bubble” by Jane O’Connor and Tomie dePaola, and “Bubble Bath Pirates” by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. 

For more great educational activities visit Grandparents Teach, Too web page and listen to WNMU Radio 90 Learning Through the Seasons Podcasts   

Photos:
Enright, John. 20121001_161951.jpg. 2012. Pics4Learning. 13 Jun 2013
Bonsall, Dawn. img_2127.jpg. June 25, 2007. Pics4Learning. 13 Jun 2013