25 Small Adventures to Celebrate Spring
Spring has Sprung! The weather is warming up and brighter colors are starting to bloom everywhere. If someone asks me what my favorite season is, I will tell them “EVERY SEASON!” There are so many adventures to be had with each change of the season and this list is 25 of our favorite things to do as a family to celebrate Spring.
1. Go on a Walk
You can do this anywhere. Your neighborhood or at a park. Smell the new smells, listen to the birds, feel the wind, and look for the new flowers and signs of spring. You can make it a scavenger hunt, color hunt, or a hunt using your five senses!!
2. Make a Bird House or Bird Feeder
My kiddos love to paint and I will be buying them this bird house to paint.
We will also be purchasing this bird feeder to attach to our favorite reading window!
3. Paint a Flower Pot
I have purchased these flower pots for my children to paint.
4. Play in the Rain or Jump in Puddles
In my opinion, playing in the rain and jumping in puddles is a MUST for any child. I remember when Big Sister and Brother were toddlers and I had them jump in the puddles. I had to teach them how to play in the rain! But now it is one of their favorite things to do. If it’s warm enough and there is no thunder-LET THEM PLAY! Let them get wet! Let them get muddy! We love to crush up chalk and make the puddles vibrantly colorful before jumping in them! We found the idea from Growing A Jeweled Rose. I also am thinking about putting these AWESOME Harry Potter Color Changing Umbrellas in the kiddos’ easter basket! I mean….I CAN’T EVEN!
5. Take a Hike or Visit a National/State Park
Why not expand your nature walk by taking a hike instead. There are so many beautiful parks and hiking trails throughout the entire country. Go enjoy them! Find evidence of spring and animal life! Some of my favorite parks to hike in East Tennessee are Seven Islands State Birding Park, Big Ridge State Park, Frozen Head State Park, and Cades Cove in the Great Smokey Mountains.
You can read more about Cades Cove in That Time We Fell in Love with Kids Cove.
6. Have a Picnic
You could either have a picnic in your own backyard or pack a basket and blanket and leave the home to make an afternoon out of it!
7. Watch the Clouds
While you are having a picnic, lay down and look up to the sky. Encourage your child’s creativity by finding different shapes in the clouds! My daughter will probably bring her sketchbook so she can sketch what she saw!
8. Look for Worms
Ewwwww! Groooosssss! Worms!?! But I have a four year old boy that loves all things creepy crawly. I mean I even made him a creepy crawly cake for his birthday!! When have our “bug week” for homeschool, we are going to learn about why worms are so good for our soil and gardens. We will then have a fun time looking for worms in our own backyard! On Earth Day, we will be starting a compost pile and learning about worms prior to that will really help when it is time for us to start.
9. Feed the Ducks
I just love feeding the ducks and I have never taken Brother to do it. In the Knoxville Area there are so many great places to take your children to feed the ducks. Fountain City Duck Pond is a favorite family tradition for many Knoxvillians and the Cove at Concord Park in Farragut is full of ducks and geese for you to feed. They even provide the food to make sure that you don’t feed anything that will hurt the ducks. All you need is quarters to pay for the food!
10. Plant Some Flowers
We are focusing on Spring and Plants for a few weeks and we are going to pick out some flowers to beautify our back yard!
11. Make Seed Paper or Seed Bombs
We are using this recipe from Natural Beach Living.
12. Find a Class at a Local Wilderness Center or arboretum.
Local Wilderness Centers and Arboretums are amazing resources to utilize for all kinds of adventures! They provide wonderful afternoons of fun events and educational tools. One of my favorite places in the Knoxville area is Ijams. The Ijams Nature Center provides A PLETHORA of amazing classes and events to celebrate the outdoors for the family! We are their so much we could live there!
13. Read Outside
I look for any excuse to snuggle up with my kiddos and read. In our family, reading is a way to show love and a time that we spend with each other with out any distractions. SO GET OUTSIDE! Get some books and snuggle up for a read a thon.
Some of our favorite books are:
14. Make Spring Time Slime or Sensory Play
I make slime once a week. It’s a time that my son plays for a great length of time without begging for technology. So I try to find a theme that goes with whatever we are studying for the week. We’ve made slime and put a bunch of his toy bugs in it and next week when we study plants I will be making this sensory bin from Natural Beach Living.
15. Make a Spring Art Collage
Get out there and collect some items that remind you of spring. Be sure to not take anything from any parks (Remember- “leave only foot prints, take only memories.”) Also, you might want to explain to your young children that they cannot pick flowers out of people’s yards without permission.
After you collect all the items you want, get out the craft supplies and let your children get creative with how they want to attach it to a back ground. Use a canvas, paper, what ever you have laying around!! Let your kiddos create their own designs but if the creative juices aren’t flowing you can let them create a person or a butterfly or a mosaic!
16. Explore the Flowers
There are so many things you can do to explore flowers. You can create a sensory bin like the one above. You can just talk about how they look, smell, and feel (maybe not taste since some can be poisonous.) You can press the flowers. You can even use the flowers to study the anatomy of a flower!
17. Fly a Kite
If the day is windy enough go somewhere without trees and fly that kite. My daughter just picked this kite out and is waiting (not so patiently) for a perfect windy day to fly a kite with her father.
18. Go to the Zoo!
The animals at the zoo are just as happy about the warmer weather as we are! It’s so fun to watch them celebrate the change of the season too.
19. Go Bird Watching
While on your hike grab your binoculars and try to find some birds as they come back from farther south after winter. If you want, you can even bring a bird guide with you to figure out what birds you are looking at.
20. Blow Bubbles
What kids don’t love to go outside and play with bubbles? We love this bubble blower for our kiddos!
21. Paint Rocks
Paint rocks and hide them around your community for others to enjoy!
22. Play with chalk!
Draw, Paint, Crush them! The possibilities are endless. Our favorite are the classic Crayola Sidewalk Chalk. I’m also getting the kiddos this for their Easter Basket!
23. Go to A Playground
Nothing better than seeing the joy of a child as they are able to run free and climb, swing, slide, and play.
24. Craft Day
So I am totally planning on making my mom friends join me at a coffee shop and we give the children some craft supplies for them to get their creativity on while we just drink coffee (maybe wine…) and chat. I’m really excited about this. This plan is perfect because they can do it outside or inside if we can’t control the unpredictable southern spring weather.
25. Take a Road Trip!
We love taking road trips and just exploring the area. Roll those windows down, turn up the radio and go explore. If you live in the East Tennessee Area you can explore the Cades Cove Loop, the Missing Link, or one of the many trails that Tennessee has so wonderfully created for you!
What have I missed? What are your favorite things to do during Spring? If you like what you are reading-what are you waiting for! Get out there and enjoy this beautiful season of rebirth!
For fun and free adventures to do any season you can read Favorite, Fun, and Free for the Whole Family.
What a great list! This list really is a great start to break in spring! Awesome of you to share. I’ve already done some of them. 🙂 Have a lovely day. Koko
Thank you! I’ve glad you’ve done some of these! They makes some great memories with your kiddos!
I love lists like this that motivate you to try something new
Awesome list! I make sure all 3 of my kids have rain boots, rain coats and umbrellas so when we finally get those “warm rain days” we can play in the rain! They have a ball getting all that pent up winter energy out!
Yes!! Playing in the rain is one of my favorite childhood memories and I love jumping in puddles with my kiddos!
Spring isn’t usually my favorite season (I’m more of a Fall girl), but this has me so excited for Spring! I am going to turn this into our family bucket list and see how many we can do before summer hits. Thanks for the wealth of tips!
So fun!! It will make some great memories! I’d love to hear about what you think after you have done them.
Here in MN there is still some snow in our yards. However, today it was 50 degrees and amazing. We did a picnic snack on a blanket on our neighbor’s driveway and then busted out the bubbles and sidewalk chalk. Great list!
That sounds like such a fun day!
I love these ideas! I’m going to save them for those days when I’m not sure what to do with the kids!
These are perfect for those days!!