It has been an especially cold and rainy winter this year, so when I say that I am excited for Spring, that is an understatement. I could not wait to break out all the spring themed sensory bins, crafts and learning centers to get my preschool learners ready for Spring! Today, I am walking you through all of my favorite Spring activities I did with my preschool classroom and how you can set up these centers with your students!

Here's what we are focusing on this week:

• Letter: Review
• Color: Review
• Shape: Review
• Numbers: 1-20

Pin It! Don't forget to save this this blog for later! You don't want to forget about the BEST spring themed activities for your preK classroom!

Spring Preschool Read Aloud Books:

• Bird Builds a Nest By: Martin Jenkins

• Little Blue Truck’s Springtime By: Alice Schertle

• Some Bugs By: Angela Diterlizzi

• Garden Time By: Jill McDonald

• Plant the Tiny Seed By: Christie Matheson

Spring Preschool Centers Day 1:

Build a Birdhouse:

Materials Used:

• Printer paper (this craft has a black and white option if you want to save on ink!)
• Sorting tray for the craft pieces
• Plastic Photo holders for the example pages
• Scissors
• Glue
• Makers or crayons

This open-ended craft center is perfect for working on fine motor skills! Students can cut and paste craft pieces to construct their own birdhouse. My students are still working on their scissor skills, so these shapes were a little too complicated for the to cut out on their own. Instead I cut out each item for them. This allowed them to have fun hunting through each craft piece to find what they wanted and glue it to the craft page.

For older students, I would encourage them to cut the craft pieces themselves since this would be great for developing those fine motor skills!

Example birdhouses are included to help guide students in their crafting. I taped the example pieces to plastic photo holders that I found at the dollar tree so that my students could easily reference what their birdhouse could look like. 

Counting Eggs:

Materials Used:

• Egg loose parts - egg mini erasers
• Play Dough
• Printer paper and Laminator sheets

This math center focuses on numbers 1-20. Students count eggs to add to the bird nest and use play dough or other loose parts to fill the 10-frame graph.

Two "Counting Egg" pages are provided: one with a single 10-frame for counting 1-10 and another with two 10-frames for counting 1-20. Number egg counting cards from 1-20 are included.

 

Spring Preschool Centers Day 2:

Build a Caterpillar:

Materials Used:

• Rainbow beads
• Rainbow pipe cleaners

Easily set up a fine motor center using rainbow beads and pipe cleaners. Students string beads onto the pipe cleaner to match the patterns on the cards and build a caterpillar. 21 caterpillar pattern cards are included.

Build a Butterfly:

Materials Used:

• Rainbow beads
• Rainbow pipe cleaners

Using rainbow beads and pipe cleaners, students can build a butterfly by matching the patterns on the cards and placing the items onto the butterfly mats. 20 butterfly cards are included. 

Spring Preschool Centers Day 3:

Catch a Bug!

Materials Used:

• Sensory Bin Filler: Green colored rice
• Toy bugs
• Alphabet bug cards
• Catch a Bug tracing sheet
• Crayons or markers

Create a sensory bin and add bug alphabet cards. Students pick a bug card, identify the letter, and trace it on the "Catch a Bug!" sheet. Both black-and-white and color options are provided for the "Catch a Bug!" sheet. 

Bug Hunt

Materials Used:

• Sensory bin filler: black beans and green crinkle paper
• Toy Bugs 
• Crayons and markers
• Bug Hunt sheet

Set up a sensory bin with a filler of your choice and add in toy bugs. If you do not have toy bugs, I have provided you with bug cards to print and add to your sensory bin. Students can hunt for each bug in the sensory bin and color it off of the "Bug Hunt" sheet.

I was planning on doing this activity as a one-on-one center, but once my students saw the activity they were all too excited and did not want to wait their turn. So I grabbed the sensory bin and placed it on the floor and gave each student a sheet and a tray to color on. I am so happy I moved it to the carpet because it allowed for so much conversation between my preschoolers as they hunted for each bug together. 

Bug Observation:

Materials Used:

• Sensory bin filler: black beans and green crinkle paper
• Toy Bugs 
• Crayons and markers
• Counting cubes

Using the same sensory bin, students pick a bug to observe, identify its type, appearance, and measure it using counting cubes. Bug observation sheets provided: Caterpillar, Fly, Worm, Spider, Ladybug, Snail, Dragonfly, Grasshopper, Butterfly, Ant, Bee.

 

Spring Preschool Centers Day 4:

Build a Garden:

Materials Used:

• Sorting tray with garden themed loose parts (examples: pipe cleaners, mini erasers, pom poms, toy food, seeds, flowers, play dough, etc)
• Laminator sheets

This hands-on math center involves sorting garden-themed loose parts and play dough. Students pick three garden counting cards and add the correct number of each item to the "Build a Garden" mat, focusing on numbers 1-12. Garden counting cards include tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, corn, flowers, radishes, seeds, broccoli.

Build It! Popsicle Mats:

Materials Used:

• Rainbow popsicle sticks
• Dry erase markers
• Laminator sheets

You will be able to set up a fine motor center using rainbow popsicle sticks. Students can find the correct sticks to build spring items on the fine motor mats. Then, use a dry erase marker to color the correct items in the box below. Build It mats included: Bee, Birdhouse, Dragonfly, Flower, Rainbow, Butterfly, Fence.

 

Spring Preschool Centers Day 5:

Garden Shapes:

Materials Used:

• Scissors
• Glue
• Markers or crayons

Students can cut and paste flower shapes to the garden craft page to match the pattern at the top of the page. Shapes focused on: circle, square, triangle and heart. Six craft pages with both black-and-white and color options are provided.

Build a Flower:

Materials Used:

• Scissors
• Glue
• Makers or crayons

Students can cut and paste colored flower petals to the craft page. After completing the craft, they practice early math skills by counting how many of each petal color was used. Both black-and-white and color options are provided.

Now It's Your Turn!

Are you excited to start setting up your own space preschool centers? Don't worry, all of these space printables are all in one place!