Homeschooling the Seasons : Spring Activities and Crafts

Spring is in the air. At the weekend the weather was so warm I hung my washing outside to dry for the first time in months, it was strangely exhilarating. And yes I am aware that it's a bit sad when you get excited about where you can dry your laundry! 

Sunny day

I've always felt it was important to bring the children's attention to the seasons. When we first began homeschooling, Waldorf was a strong influence on my approach and the emphasis on nature, the seasons and hand crafts really suited us. With three children now of varying ages I don't always get to steer the homeschooling in quite the same way I did when I only one. However, I do try to keep an awareness of the seasons in our lives and work on it specifically with our youngest child, Lotta. 

One of the ways we focus on the seasons is with our seasonal books and you can read about our spring favourite here. The garden also helps, March begins the season of planting and we try to get the children involved as this post explains. Last year they each had a plot and they are keen to be responsible for a part of the garden again this season. They love when we eat food that they grew themselves.

Lotta with one of her own carrots

And I also try to make sure that we get in some seasonal crafts. We often spend some time drawing and painting flowers and blossom and we usually paint eggs for easter and of course there's flower pressing and picking wild flower bouquet's. I've already had my first little person flower offering - lovely.

Yellow Bouquet

Maya in bloom

Here is a quick round up of the crafts I've spotted and think we'll give a try this spring:

• Paper Eggs to Suspend from Craft and Creativity

Craft and Creativity's Paper Eggs

• Pom Pom Easter egg painting from Crafty Morning. I think they'll enjoy the novelty of painting with a different medium than paintbrushes for this one!

• Unbelievably we've never grown cress so I think we'll give something like this from The Imagination Tree a try,  it will be great to tie in work on letters.

• Eggs for Ornithology is just one of the fantastic ideas on Imagine Childhood's wonderful list of spring crafts, I think we might also try out the blooming petit fours, spring macaroons and probably the rainbow flower wreath.

• And from the amazing Artful Parent site which we've turned to many times for inspiration, I'm really liking the stained glass window ideas (last year we used real flowers and sticky back plastic to decorate our windows), the fairy wings, and this fun with a box!

I'll be sure to update with some pictures of these crafts once we get started!

thte