Spring is one of my four favorite seasons! Honestly, I enjoy all of the seasons, but by the end of one season, I’m ready for another. This year’s weather has been a roller coaster ride, and we have bounced between cold weather and warm weather for the last month. I’m hoping this warm weather is here to stay for a while.
Spring feels like such a time of renewal and new life. The birds are out singing, the flowers are blooming, the bees are buzzing, and life seems to hold so much hope and promise. I can’t forget my favorite part of spring, strawberries! We just had our first bucket of fresh strawberries for the season last week and they were so good!
Spring Fever Homeschool Solutions
One part of spring that could be viewed as a negative is ‘spring fever.’ The children, and if most of us are honest, the parents are ready to be outside. Sitting inside and doing schoolwork can seem arduous on the first pretty days after winter. To balance that natural desire to be outside enjoying the weather with our need to complete our schoolwork we take school outside.
Sometimes, like today, we literally take our schoolwork outside. Math seems a bit less tedious when there is grass under your feet and sun on your face. The children either take a table cloth to lay on, sit at the picnic table, or grab a folding chair and take their work outside. To help us stay organized when we do school outside, we keep book bags where they can store their materials.
Rainy Spring Day Homeschool Activities
When it is time to come in or on rainy days, we can do schoolwork related to spring inside. This can be completing on of the fun Spring Chalk Pastel Lessons, doing a study on birds, flowers, or plants, or even reading books about Spring. We have started going through the spring chalk pastel art course and are really enjoying it.
It is such a fun and easy way to incorporate art into our nature study this month. A couple of good book options are Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed or the one we want to read this year, The Penderwicks in Spring. We have read the first book in this series and really enjoyed it.
Other times, I use various parts of the season to create natural learning opportunities. It is the perfect time of year to learn about plants and gardening. You can study how to grow them, pollination, and nutrition by actually planting a garden, harvesting your crop, and my favorite part, eating what you grew.
If you cannot plant a garden where you live, you can plant a few windowsill plants or visit a local farm. In addition to gardening, we love to raise baby chicks to become laying hens which provide eggs for our family and some of our friends.
Even if you can’t raise chickens, it is a good time of year to visit your local lawn and garden or feed store and let the children see the baby chicks. You can also purchase simple kits to raise and release butterflies or lady bugs that let children see the life cycles up close. These are nice because it gives you the live animals and hands on experience without the long term commitment of animals like chicks.
Spring Bird Study
Spring is also an excellent time to study birds. You can get a field guide, like this Peterson’s First Guide to Birds to help you identify the various birds you see near your home. This is one of my favorite bird guides because it is very simple and easy to use. Some other guides are more thorough but can be overwhelming to children (and parents that are new to bird watching).
If you want to entice more birds to your yard or make it a bit easier to study them you can put up a bird feeder. This can be a homemade one or something like this inexpensive bird feeder that attaches to your windows.
I’ve talked about Our Hiking Adventures before, and spring time is a great time to hike. This is a great way to see different plants and animals while getting a bit of exercise. There are other Peterson’s First Guides like the bird one above that can be a great way to learn more about what you are seeing as you hike.
If you have small children, they may enjoy just walking and looking for various colors or shapes. Whether you go to a local park or simply ‘hike’ though a nearby field or forest it is a great chance to get outside and enjoy spring.
Spring Fun
Of course, Spring is not only about school. There are so many fun things to do in the spring. You can go to a local farm and pick strawberries or visit your local farmers market to pick out yummy spring vegetables.
My children enjoy picking (and eating) strawberries, and it seems they eat more than they put in the baskets some years. Our strawberry-farming friends even joke about weighing the little ones before and after picking. This is a great way to get children excited about eating healthy foods and provide an understanding about where food comes from.
It is a wonderful time to break out the sidewalk chalk and the bubbles and just enjoy being outside. Kites are also a big hit at our house; from little simple ones, they make themselves to larger ones that need a little help and guidance. They are a fun way to spend a spring afternoon.
In addition to these ideas, I’ve added a fun spring bucket list to the free resource library with lots of fun ideas for spring!
Spring Ideas and Resources
When you sign up for our free resource library, you will get a link and password to the library; we are adding to the library each month with new items. You will also get a bi-weekly newsletter email to keep you up to date on what we have going on.
Resource Library
This post may contain affiliate or referral links, including Amazon affiliate links. As always, I will never recommend a product that I don’t believe in, and you will never be charged more for purchasing through our links. It does help pay for the costs associated with the blog.
Deals and Freebies
Schoolhouse Teachers is now offering a lifetime option! They are a great place for a one stop shop curriculum or a way to have a lot of options to fill in different electives and courses into what you have already chosen.
FREE zoo scavenger hunt from Journey Homeschool Academy
The Homeschool Curriculum Summit is coming soon! Grab your free ticket now!
Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)
FREE Month of Kindle Unlimited: I have been using this for my own pleasure reading as well as books for my son and daughter and really enjoying it.
Not Consumed has a new Pre-K and Kindergarten Curriculum for sale!
Harry The Happy Mouse (Free on Kindle)
Illustrated Would You Rather Book (Free on Kindle)
The American holiday of Thanksgiving may only be a day, but we love to spend the whole month focused on giving thanks and praising God for all he has done for us. We started last week by writing down something we are thankful for each night and placing it in our scarecrow container on the kitchen table. On Thanksgiving morning, we will gather around the table for brunch and read them aloud. We hope this will encourage a mindset of thankfulness all month long.
Alice in Wonderland on Audible for less than $1!!
FREE: Check out this great new FREE resource for classical and Charlotte Mason education! Classical Christian Education & Charlotte Mason. Great for folks already homeschooling or if you have friends that are looking into it! 
Last year I found a great idea of 
There are also many resources available for reading, science, math and other subjects to help make school more thematic if you choose. For my older children this year we will mostly continue with our normal curriculum while adding in a few fun Valentine’s activities.
We will also enjoy reading 
The Schoolin' Swag Blog 