SPRING ACTIVITIES FOR TODDLERS
Ahhh Spring. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping…and your toddler is extra crazy from being cooped up all winter long.
Don’t worry! Today I’m going to be sharing my 13 Spring Activities for Toddlers, which will get your child moving around and learning through play.
These spring toddler activities are not only fun, but will help support your child’s development as well!
All these activities are available in the Spring Unit of my Tiny Tots Toddler Curriculum, which is a play-based, at-home curriculum for toddlers and preschoolers ages 18 months – 3 years. If you’d like to know more about my Tiny Tots Toddler Curriculum, then check out this video.
To see the following activities in action, then watch this video.
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SPRING-THEMED BOOKS FOR TODDLERS
If you’re looking for some great spring books for toddlers, here are some of our favorites:
- The Tiny Seed By Eric Carle
- Some Bugs By Angela DiTerlizzi
- I Can Grow a Flower By Dawn Sirett
- A Little Book About Spring By Leo Lionni
- Little Blue Truck’s Springtime By Alice Schertle
FINE MOTOR SPRING ACTIVITIES
First, let’s start with our fine motor spring activities. These activities will help strengthen your child’s hand and finger muscles as well as hand-eye coordination.
FLOWER PUSH
Our first activity is a flower push. For materials, you’re going to need a colander, some floral foam, and some artificial flowers (which I grabbed from Dollar Tree).
To set this up, you’re going to want to trim the stems a bit, then place the floral foam under the colander and have your child push the flowers through the holes and into the floral foam.
If you need to extend the activity to make it a bit more challenging, you can have your toddler count the flowers as they put them in the colander, or create a simple pattern of colors or types of flowers.
FEED THE CATERPILLAR
Next, we have Feed the Caterpillar. This is super simple, but kids love using their imagination to “feed” bugs or animals.
I took a recycled cardboard tube and painted it green, but you can also choose to cover it with green construction paper. I glued some googly eyes on the top, along with a pipe cleaner for antennae, then had Luke “feed” the caterpillar mini pom-poms.
If your child is older, you can have them sort the pom-poms by color first, or have them roll a die, count the dots, then feed the caterpillar that many pom-poms.
PLANTING FLOWERS
Another simple, yet awesome activity is planting flowers. For this, I printed the flower printables from my Spring Tiny Tots Unit, then laminated them, cut them out, and hot glued them to green popsicle sticks.
I then took an empty egg carton, flipped it upside down and cut slits in the top. Next, I had Luke “plant” the flowers by pushing the popsicle sticks into the egg carton.
GROSS MOTOR SPRING ACTIVITIES
The next few activities are going to focus on gross motor skills, which will help to strengthen the larger muscle groups of the body, such as legs, arms, and torso.
BALLOON CLOUDS
Luke had SO much fun with this balloon cloud activity! We blew up some white balloons to act as “clouds” then had Luke throw and kick them around the room. So simple, yet so fun and it definitely got his little legs and arms moving!
Be sure to NEVER leave your young child unattended with balloons and remove them from the room as soon as the activity is over.
SPRING SCAVENGER HUNT
After being cooped up all winter long, getting outside in the spring is definitely a welcomed activity!
This Spring Scavenger Hunt will get your little one running around and enjoying the fresh air, while exploring nature and building their vocabulary, all at the same time!
This scavenger hunt printable is available in my Tiny Tots Spring Unit, so I printed that and took Luke outside with a clipboard, a crayon, and a basket. Off hunting we went!
We found different objects outside, such as a leaf, rocks, trees, and grass. My husband, Mike, and I showed Luke how to check off the items as he found them and if something was small enough, he put it in his little basket.
I included printable picture cards in the Spring Unit to use in case you can’t find a particular item in your area, or as a bonus activity for vocabulary enrichment!
PICK THE FLOWERS
This flower picking activity was super cute and Luke really enjoyed it! I used the same flowers from the “Planting Flowers” activity in my Spring Toddler Unit and stuck them in the grass around our backyard.
We took Luke outside with a basket and had him run around the yard and pick the flowers!
If your child needs more of a challenge, have them grab only the flowers of a certain color before returning to get the others.
I also have numbered flower printables in the Spring Unit to add an even greater challenge to this activity, so your child can pick the flowers in number order.
SPRING SENSORY ACTIVITIES
Sensory play is so amazing for toddlers! Research shows that sensory play helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways, which increase a child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks.
Sensory play also supports language development, cognitive growth, fine and gross motor skills, problem-solving skills, and social interaction.
DUCK POND SENSORY BIN
Our first sensory activity is a Duck Pond Sensory Bin. I threw some rubber ducks into our Ikea Flisat sensory table with some water. Then, I added a few drops of blue food coloring and a dropper to let Luke explore!
This is also a great hands-on activity to sing with the song “Five Little Ducks” because you can take the ducks out of the bin as you sing with your child.
FLOWER SMELL JARS OR FLOWER DISCOVERY JARS
This next activity is such a fun way to explore flowers! I made these flower-smelling jars using fresh flowers and mason jars with holes drilled in the lid!
As long as your child isn’t sensitive to floral scents or doesn’t have allergies, this activity is great for examining the sense of smell.
You can also take some fresh flowers and put them in a clear water bottle to make a flower discovery jar. I got a bunch of these clear sensory bottles from Amazon, which are amazing because they don’t tip easily and have a wide top, which makes them easy to fill.
A flower discovery bottle is a great opportunity to explore and talk about parts of a flower, as well as different colors, patterns, and textures that your child sees.
GARDENING SENSORY BIN
What would a list of spring activities be without a gardening sensory bin?! I opted to use black kinetic sand as a substitute for real soil, to keep the mess factor a little lower and it actually worked out really well for us!
I got some plastic planters from Amazon, along with this really adorable children’s gardening tool set. I also grabbed some artificial flowers from Dollar Tree and stuck them in there as well. This is a great way to introduce the concept of gardening and taking care of plants to your young child.
We also have this little Learning Resources play gardening set which is a great option if you want to keep things squeaky clean.
COGNITIVE SPRING ACTIVITIES
Cognitive activities have to do with how children think, explore, and figure things out in the world around them.
FLOWER COLOR SORT
First, in our cognitive category, we have a Flower Color Sort. I printed the flowers and the sorting mats from my Tiny Tots Spring Unit, then had Luke sort the flowers by color.
You can use real or artificial flowers for this activity.
If your child needs a greater challenge, you can sort the flowers by size. I have printables for this activity in my Spring Unit as well.
RAIN CLOUD IN A JAR
For a simple, easy, science experiment, try this Rain Cloud in a Jar activity.
You fill a clear jar up to about ¾ of the way with water, then mix some blue food coloring and water together in a separate cup.
Right before you’re ready to begin, fill the rest of the jar with shaving cream, then take a dropper and gradually drop some of the blue water over the shaving cream. Continue to slowly add more as you watch it come through the “cloud” and into the water!
Luke was still a tiny bit too young to completely understand this, but he was SO excited about it. It also helps that he is currently obsessed with the color blue, so he was screaming “BLUE!” the whole time.
I did share some vocabulary words during this activity, like “cloud” and “rain.” Even though my son is young and may not completely understand, he was repeating the words, which is AT LEAST giving him some exposure!
SPRING ART ACTIVITIES
TISSUE PAPER BALL BUTTERFLY
This tissue paper ball butterfly is not only a great (and EASY) art project, but it’s also great for fine motor skills as well!
There is a butterfly template included for this activity in my Spring Unit, so we printed that out, tore up some tissue paper, and crumpled the torn paper into little balls before gluing them onto the butterfly! Easy peasy, but super cute.
PAINTING WITH FLOWERS
If you haven’t noticed, I like to keep things simple with toddlers – especially when it comes to art projects.
This next art activity is simply painting with flowers! I used artificial flowers of various sizes, but you can use real flowers if you prefer or even mix the two!
I had Luke dip the flowers in paint, which I put on a paper plate, and then instructed him to paint his paper using his flowers as paintbrushes.
I encouraged him to use different motions, such as stamping and brushing. We also talked about the different colors we saw and explored the different patterns that the different flowers made.
My Tiny Tots Toddler Spring Unit comes with over 25 play-based spring activities for toddlers. It also comes with some book recommendations, themed snack ideas, detailed, differentiated daily activity plans, a materials list, weekly overview and vocabulary words!
You can check it out here!
I discount all the Tiny Tots Units for the first 48 hours when they are released, so if you’d like to be the first to be notified, sign up for the email list here.
Want to see some of my other Tiny Tots Units? You can see some more spring activities for toddlers from my Easter Unit here or my St. Patrick’s Unit here!
Do you have any other spring activities for toddlers? If so, share them below!
