Spring in the Classroom

Spring is in the air here in Bermuda and we had a great last week of term! Being that this was Parent-Teacher Conference week and we are in meetings until late into the night each day, we try to incorporate some activities that require little-to-no marking. One way we've done this is to do "Spring Handwriting" booklets. We googled and printed off a series of short poems to do with spring and Easter and I made some cute writing paper. The learning objective was for students to practice their handwriting. Once this activity is planned, it's completely child-run and is a great 'fast finisher' activity. More able writers were encouraged to try writing some of their own poems, too. On the last day of term, I stapled their booklets together with a cute title page and sent them home-- no marking needed! (and a cute keepsake for parents).

An annual spring activity in my class

I came across this little beauty last year on Pinterest. It's from the Teaching in Spain blog. I keep it very simple but you could extend the activity by encouraging patterning in the coloured stripes or discussing colour theory. One painting trick that I've picked up over the years is to use one paintbrush per paint colour. So, if I gave each table a paint tray with 6 colours in it, then they would also get 6 brushes. One would be used for purple, one for pink, and so on. That brush would never need to be washed or cleaned and dipped into another colour. This is a game changer.
After the kiddies have done their painting, I do some guided drawing to create the rabbit faces. They turn out so cute and really show off my students' different personalities. I should really do these two weeks before the holidays so I can keep them on display longer!


Each spring my school does egg rolling which is a really nice tradition. However, each year I have tried different painting techniques and never quite liked how they turned out. The key is to do something simple but effective. I don't really have much interest in giving my 21 students food colouring that could ruin their uniforms or any opportunity to drop hardboiled eggs on the floor. Well, this year they turned out really cute! All I did was put some scrap paper in a tray and get the kids to put in a few drops of paint. They then rolled the eggs around until they were covered. While they were doing this, I cut up paper and made little egg stands. We left them overnight to dry and the marbleized effect was super-cute the next day. I will definitely use this technique again. It was almost mess-free and was easy to manage. This was a really cool idea, but I just was not prepared at all!

Check out all of my other "Spring in the Classroom" ideas on Pinterest, here.