spring Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Code and Color Spring Flower Coloring Pages

February 26, 2023 By Deirdre

There are many signs of spring. However, this set features color-by-code spring flower coloring pages. Buds on trees and spring flowers scattered around yards are many people’s favorite signs of spring. The set displays the coloring directions of Blockly coding blocks. There are two versions of each of the four pages.

Getting the Spring Flower Coloring Pages Ready to Use

Downloading the Spring Flower Coloring Pages

First, you will need to download the set.

Color By Code Spring Flowers Coloring Set Download

Second, if you don’t have Acrobat Reader you will need to download it. The algorithm page is an Acrobat Reader PDF file.

Third, you must go to your download file and open the page. You may be asked if you want the file to open after downloading. You won’t have to hunt for it in your download file if you are.

Building Background

If your children don’t know a lot about spring flowers or flowers in general, you may want to read a book or do an activity that features them before you start these pages.

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This fun STEAM building kit invites children to create and build a garden of spring flowers.

Oh, Say Can You Seed?: All About Flowering Plants is a wonderful Cat in the Hat book that teaches children about the parts of plants and how they grow.

What fun it would be to plant a planter and then grow flowers in it!

The Garden Classroom: Hands-On Activities in Math, Science, Literacy, and Art does a wonderful job of tying learning into growing.

Exploring the Color By Code Spring Flower Coloring Pages

Deciding What Style of Page to Explore

You can decide if you want your children to work on the page or pages that feature assigned colors or choose their colors. While the choose your own opens the door for children to be creative, it can lead to very unique colored flowers. However, that may be what you enjoy and want to encourage.

Understanding the Direction of the Flower Coloring Pages

If you are having a non-reader work on the color-by-code pages, you may want to help them highlight what they need to do. First, you can have them underline the number they are focusing on for each step. Next, children will need to place a line that matches the color mentioned in that step over or under that number.

Some children will be fine with just highlighting the directions. However, there will be some that need to draw a dot near the number in each section that matches the assigned color. They can go back later and color in the whole section.

Following the Directions in Order

While there are children that like to follow directions in order, others will what to start at the top of the picture and work their way down. The idea of including the directions in algorithm blocks was to have them follow them from top to bottom the way a computer would. It will be up to you to decide what you think is best.

More Coloring Pages

Apple Life Cycle Mandala

Decorating an Umbrella Based on an Algorithm

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish Algorithm Page

Hexbug Rainbow LEGO Track

February 17, 2015 By Deirdre

This past Christmas was the year of the LEGO influx at my house. We have been doing a lot of learning activities with them since Christmas. We have worked on fractions and geometry with LEGOS as well as a number of other activities. Last year was the year of the Hexbug. We have tons of them too. I decide to combine LEGOS and the Hexbugs to create a Hexbug track for my son to race his Hexbugs in. The track and roaming area are supposed to look like a rainbow connected to a cloud. I thought about what would be a fun theme for spring and St. Patrick’s Day.

Putting the Hexbug Track Together

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We use a LEGO® Base 32 x 32 a lot for building and learning. It was large enough to create a four-lane entry track for the Hexbugs and display the outline of a cloud. I used the first five colors of a rainbow in order to create entry lanes. A variety of sizes of white bricks were used to make the cloud. (If you have a lot of white LEGO Parts and Pieces, they would make your cloud a little more cloud-like. We don’t have any of those.)

The cloud was left empty at first it gave the Hexbugs a lot of open space to roam in.

After a few races, some small white bricks were set up as barriers inside the cloud. They posed a challenge for the Hexbugs! One of the great things about Hexbugs is that they are designed to patiently shake their way around barriers. The barriers were placed in the center of the cloud to make them less frustrating for the Hexbugs and for the boy that would be watching them jostle around the cloud.

It was fun to see if horizontal or vertical barriers would be the most challenging. We tried using both 1×2 and 2×2 bricks to see which would be easiest for the Hexbugs to get around.

Beyond playing with Hexbugs this activity ended up using problem-solving skills. ( I love activities that stretch children’s brains.) What could be done to make the Hexbugs race down the track and around the cloud easier or harder? Each of these concepts was explored as we played.

Here are some other wonderful LEGO activities:

LEGO Fraction Games

Five Days of LEGO Learning Activities

Geometry Riddles Solved with LEGO

LEGO Game- Race to Twenty

Valentine Ideas – Graphing with Candy Hearts and LEGO

Math with LEGO- Activity for Improving Word Problem Skills

How long will your boat float?

Counting Syllables with LEGO Bricks

Over in the Meadow LEGO Creations and Book

LEGO Count and Move ( Free Printable)

Three Billy Goats Gruff Retelling with LEGO

If you do try any of the above LEGO learning activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about it or share a picture of it on my Facebook page. If the activity is from another wonderful blog, I bet they would love for you to share how much you like it on their blog or Facebook page.

Spring Craft for Kids – Weather Headband

May 3, 2013 By Deirdre

I usually come up with activities for JDaniel and I to do after we read a book. This week we did it backwards. We made this spring craft for kids that displays spring weather in a headband first and then explored our home library for a book that talked about spring time.

Spring Craft for Kids - Weather Headband - It's Spring Time!

It’s Spring Time! by Elizabeth Bennett is a wonderful board book I was sent to review by Tiger Tales. It is a book that shares signs of spring with wonderful pictures and fun rhymes. Seeds being planted, baby birds cheeping for their mom or dad, spring cleaning, spring rain are all shared in this book.

JDaniel loves the glitter that appears on every page spread. It really makes the pictures glitter. I really love the precious animals. They are so adorable.

How did we make our spring craft for kids?

Spring Weather Headband Craft for Kids – It’s Spring Time!

Colored strips of paper were glued together. The colored strips are arranged in the order they appear in a rainbow.

Then we stapled the rainbow to a light blue construction paper hand hand. We tried the rainbow tucked into the band and on the outside the band. Outside looked a whole lot better.

What do you need to have a rainbow? We brainstormed and decided that you needed sunshine, clouds, and raindrops. We sorted through our construction paper to find the right colors for these weather elements and then cut them out.

Once we had all the small weather elements, we blued them onto the headband. The original was to glue the clouds, raindrops, and suns in pattern around the headband. They needed up being randomly place on the band.

There must be something about five year old and hats or headbands. JDaniel really loved wearing this headband craft. After making a spring craft for kids weather headband in April, we may have to come up with a different themed spring craft for kids headband for May.

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Nature for Kids – Observing Spring with Your Senses

April 17, 2013 By Deirdre

Just before the pollen took hold of our region of the United States JDaniel and I explored the nature trail in his Nana’s retirement community. It was such fun to take in all the spring had on display on that pretty trail for us to view and take in. We decided to make this a nature for kids learning activity by looks for signs of spring we could smell, see and touch.

One of JDaniel’s favorite parts of the trail is the swings that are scattered up and down it. As he sat of the swing and I pushed him from behind, I thought about how we could use four out of our five senses to observe spring.

Hearing Sounds of Spring

He could sit for hours and listen to the sounds of the spring. There are the calls that come from birds in the lush trees. There is the rippling of the water feature that was right across from this swing. There was the movement of the tree branches as a slight breeze went by. There was also the squeak that came from the swing as I pushed it. It almost said spring as it moved back and forth.

Smells of Spring

The tree blossoms weren’t in full bloom , but we could smell the initial perfume that they put out. The new green leaves also gave off a fresh scent. There was also a slightly damp smell coming of the swing. Spring is filled with some many different smells.

Seeing Spring

JDaniel couldn’t slow down once he got off the swing. He was all over the trail looking at all the plants and trees. There were so many different shades of green and brown to observe. There were early spring plants that were festive and dressed up for Easter. Some plants were still dormant and hadn’t realized winter had passed and spring had arrived. Others were just starting to show their spring displays.

Thankfully each plant had a sign in front of it. JDaniel kept asking me what each plant was.

Touching Spring

JDaniel had the best time showing me each of the treasures and describing what it felt like. Some were soft and smooth while others were hard and bumpy. There were seed pods, pine cones, leaves, small twigs and so much more.

There were some many treasures that plants had deposited on the ground for JDaniel to find. By the end of the trail I wished that I had brought a paper bag with me to hold all of them. Since I didn’t, I asked JDaniel to find special places to hide them on the trail for others to find.

I hope you will each be able to head and out observe spring. It has so many things for us to see, hear, touch, and smell. This nature for kids activity is one your kids will ask to do again and again.