Watching For Spring’s Arrival With Preschoolers: Signs Of Spring Outdoor Observation Activity For Young Children

With a little attention given to this activity over a series of weeks, you and your preschoolers can watch the subtle signs of Spring’s arrival.

Set Up a Study Area

You will need to decide on an area outdoors where you can set up a small study area. Establish the spot in March or early April.

A Hula-hoop makes for a clearly defined area – but it will need to remain in the same place for a few weeks. You can also mark off an area three feet square in a corner of the yard with string. You want a spot where no one is going to walk or play.

However, you also want an area where grass or flowers will appear, so you’ll need to recall a bit of the previous year’s landscaping. When you bring the children outside, set down your markers and tell the children that you will be watching for spring to arrive in this space.

Observing the Study Area

Young children won’t remember the details of their previous spring, so they won’t have many expectations about Spring’s timeline.

Have the children squat down and look closely at the spot. Although they shouldn’t remove anything, they should describe anything they see.

You can take a picture of the spot. If your camera print the date on the photo, set that feature in place. Otherwise, you may want to place an index card listing the date into the scene.

Go to the spot every other day. Do the children see any insects? Is the ground drier or wetter than the last time they looked? Has snow covered the area? Do they see any bits of green poking up?

You don’t need to spend a lot of time at the study plot, 45-60 seconds may suffice if there have been no changes. When green plants arrive, you may start going to the spot daily.

Additional Spring Activities

You can show how tall plants grow from one day to the next by marking a dowel with the height of the plant. Indoors, you can measure the children’s height, perhaps guesstimating that if the children grew as quickly as plants then in a week they’d be taller than their parents!

You may want to print the pictures and post them on a calendar to show spring’s gradual arrival.

Set out the photos in a stack and have the children put the pictures in order as a sequencing activity (remove some of the pictures that don’t show much change).

Spring’s Arrival

Returning to the same small location allows the children to connect to the gradual change from one season to the next. They practice their observation skills as they notice the differences between days.

How dramatic the changes are from day-to-day will depend on your location, the weather, and the day you start this activity. As you watch the changes, ask the children when spring has arrived. How do they define the start of this new season?