With spring finally here, it's time to start thinking about how to incorporate the season into your classroom's continuous provision! Continuous provision refers to all of the different provision areas (e.g. maths, art, role play, outdoors, etc.), learning opportunities and resources which are available for the children in your class to use.
So, what kinds of enhancement activities can you include in your classroom's continuous provision during the spring season? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
1. Spring art
Use spring as inspiration for your art area! Offer a variety of materials such as pastels, paper, scissors and glue for children to create their own spring-themed artwork. They might do observational drawings of flowers, make tissue paper blossom pictures or collages of a spring day. Children could be encouraged to create their own 3D spring animals such as the one shown. Provide cardboard tubes, paints, googly eyes, feathers, pens and a selection of spring animal pictures and let the children's imaginations run wild!
2. Outdoor spring provision
Spring is the perfect time to set up an area to grow flowers or vegetables. Encourage children to help plant and water the seeds. They can then compare the height of their plants as they grow and use standard or non-standard measures to measure them. Another idea for your outdoor area is a bird-watching hide. Challenge your class to build a hide using a den-building kit! Provide chairs, some binoculars and a bird identification guide. You could set up a bird feeder and a birdbath to encourage more feathered visitors!
3. Spring counting activities
Children will enjoy counting leaves, petals, spring wooden loose parts or fluffy toy chicks with these spring counting mats. They read the number and then count out the correct number of items. Another idea would be to count sets of spring objects and then use a peg to find and clip the corresponding number on a number line. Alternatively, children in Year 1 could count the spring items in groups of 2, 5 or 10.
4. Spring role-play
Encourage imaginative play by setting up a spring-themed role-play area. This could be a garden centre, a farmer's market or a picnic area. Offer props such as hats, aprons, plants and baskets for children to use during their play. Children can use the items they create in the art area to resource their role-play set-up. They can also make signs and badges, design their own seed packets and fill out forms. Don't forget that you'll need a till and some money to make purchases too!
5. Spring fine motor activities
There are many ways to incorporate fine motor activities into your spring continuous provision. You could cut out butterfly shapes from cardboard and punch holes around the edges for children to thread string through. Seed sorting also provides a fabulous fine motor workout. Simply gather different seeds and ask children to sort them using tweezers. Geoboards are another excellent way to improve finger strength. Provide spring photos and challenge your class to use rubber bands to create leaves, flowers or animals.
6. Spring writing
This spring, encourage children to write a poem using descriptive language to describe the sights, sounds and smells they experience. They could also keep a journal about the process of growing plants. Ask them to document the different stages of plant growth, from planting the seeds to watching them produce flowers. On your writing table, leave out these spring writing mats. Your class will love the spring-themed picture prompts - they’re great for encouraging children to write simple phrases and sentences!
7. Butterfly farm kit
A butterfly farm kit can be a wonderful addition to your classroom's continuous provision enhancements during spring. They're a great way to teach children about the life cycle of butterflies, as children can witness the stages first-hand. This can help them to understand the concept of growth. A butterfly farm kit can be an exciting way to engage children in hands-on learning about the natural world, teach them about responsibility and care and also provide opportunities for language and literacy development! What's not to love?
8. Spring phonics blending activity
This spring phonics blending activity is a fun and engaging way to help children develop their reading skills. Draw and cut out pictures of lambs and add them to your farm small-world play. Then place magnetic letters on each of the lambs to make a word. Ask a child to drive a toy tractor along, sounding out each letter of the word. Can they then blend the sounds together to read the word? You can differentiate this activity depending on the ability of the child you are working with.
9. Spring jigsaws
These spring and Easter number jigsaws can provide several benefits for children. They can help to improve their cognitive skills, hand-eye coordination and problem-solving abilities. Not only that, but they're also a fun and engaging way for children to practise their counting skills! In addition, they can help children develop patience and persistence as they work towards completing the puzzle. A must-have for your spring maths area!
10. Spring addition
You can use cardboard to create a tens frame and provide children with spring-themed counters to use for counting and adding. For example, you could use flower, bird or butterfly-shaped wooden counters. You can also use real flowers or petals for counting and adding. Encourage children to use the tens frame to represent the numbers and to add them by counting the total number of counters on the frame. A fun and interactive way to help children develop their maths skills this spring!
By incorporating these activities into your classroom's continuous provision, you can provide opportunities for children to learn whilst having fun! If you have any further ideas, I'd love to hear them. Please feel free to add them to the comments below!
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