Spring Craft - Life Cycle of the Honey Bee Interactive/Play "Hive" from Cereal Box

Spring Crafts - Life Cycle of the Monarch Butterfly (Painting & Writing)

Spring Craft - Butterfly Life Cycle - Learning about Metamorphosis

*when finished the butterfly folds accordipn style down into a "caterpillar"

Butterfly Life Cycle Chart- cut into strips small enough to glue to individual Popsicle sticks
http://www.classroomfreebies.com/2012/04/butterfly-life-cycle-poster-charts.html

Basic How-To Here (use the 2nd craft listed for caterpillar-to-butterfly model)
http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/caterpillarcrafts.html

Blue Paint
Popsicle Sticks
Googlie Eyes
Construction Paper (to make antennas) - I could not get pipe cleaners to glue and stay put for anything!

Pipe Cleaner for body and pom pom for head
Sharpie (to draw wings before painting)
Various Paints & Q-Tips - To dot on colors onto wings
Elmers Glue
Mod Podge - to cover over Life Cycle Chart so it stays put
Masking Tape

This craft was mainly one that I did, having my son dot on the colors of the wings.  He wanted to do this craft but I knew he would be impatient for each step to dry/finish.

In the end, this is a craft that doubles as an activity and also a teaching tool for the life cycle of the butterfly and metamorphosis

Spring Craft - Practicing Cutting - Pollination Flower & Insects

Insects to Cut Out
http://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/butterfly-insects-bee-ladybug-vector-760492

Flowers to Cut Out
http://www.vectorious.net/img-hyacinth-vector-art---abstract-background-with-daffodil,hyacinth-and-tulip-10694.htm

Pollination Chart
http://kidsgrowingstrong.org/Pollination

Have child cut out insects and then the flowers

Help put glue tape to back of each thing cut out and let child place flowers and insects on paper

Tape pollination chart to top of picture

Spring Craft - Life Cycle of the Frog - Frog Catching Fly

 Materials

Large Paper Plate
Markers - Green and Red
1 Party Blower
1 Black Pom Pom
2 Small Googlie Eyes (for fly)
2 Large Googlie Eyes (for frog)
Elmers Glue
Frog Life Cycle Chart, found here http://theteacherladies.blogspot.com/p/life-cycle.html
Green Paint
Masking Tape
Adult Scissors

How-To

Use Elmers glue to glue pom pom to end of blower, add googlie eyes with glue (I laid a magazine over the extended blower to hold it open and in place so pom could dry on it, about an hour before we began the craft)

Fold paper plate in half

 Have child color inner circle red for frog mouth, outer rim green

Paste or tape frog life cycle chart to back of paper plate, allowing room for hole for blower
Cut hole for blower


Insert blower and tape in place with masking tape

Paint top of plate and back with green paint (we used a foam brush and acrylic paint), let dry 

Draw on nostrils and affix googlie eyes

Once it is all dry, you can let the child play with the blower

Also, don't forget to go over and explain the life cycle of the frog and metamorphosis  :)

Spring Craft - Life Cycle of the Chicken - Hatching Baby Chick

 Materials

Card Stock (we used blue)
Orange Construction Paper
Yellow Construction Paper
2 Googlie Eyes
Scrapbook Glue Tape
Brass Fastener (or ribbon)
Hole Punch
Markers

How-To

Print out this egg on Blue Card Stock

http://www.sweetclipart.com/easter-egg-coloring-page-799

Cut it out, and cut the egg in half at the midway zig zag

Have child color in the egg

Attach 2 pieces of the egg together either with a brass fastener or by punching 2 holes and tying it together

Cut a bowling pin shaped "chick" out of yellow paper

Have child help you affix the beak with scrapbook glue tape and the Googlie Eyes
Use glue tape to affix chick to back of the bottom of the egg, so it is peeking out

Life Cycle of  a Chicken Chart
http://learningenglish-esl.blogspot.jp/2010/11/life-cycle-of-chicken.html

Coffee Filter Craft - How Flowers Grow & Photosynthesis

Materials:

1 coffee filter
Food coloring in a little water
Small paint brush
Child scissors 
Glue Stick
Construction paper - green for stem & leave, brown for dirt, blue base
11 Beans, dried (we used lentils)
Elmers Glue
Black Sharpie

How-To:

Have child paint the edges of the coffee filter, leave middle white

We used a blow dryer to dry the coffee filter

When it is dry, glue it to the blue construction paper

Have child cut out stem and 2 diamonds for the leaves and the "dirt patch"

Have child help apply the glue stick to stem and leaves and dirt and affix to paper


Add 10 Elmers glue dots to the middle of the flower

Have child put a bean on each glue dot (10 beans)
(Save 1 bean for "underground")

Put one bean on the brown paper with a dot of glue

Draw roots underground and label the flower parts

Copy the photosynthesis chart and paste into Word,  to your size preference and print
Find Photosynthesis Chart here http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/earth3.htm

Then discuss the photosynthesis process with your child

Other resources:

Bill Nye has a great episode on Plants, discussing the process of photosynthesis.  There's even a segment where a car is covered in grass!  My 3 year old loves to watch it and requests it often.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD8L83LOy4k

You Tube is a great source of songs for anything but here are 2 on photosynthesis we like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1_uez5WX1o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgYPeeABoUs

Spring Craft - Feeding Worms to Baby Bird/Nest - Fine Motor

Yesterday we made a clothes pin "Robin" mama with "worms" from pipe cleaners

Today, by my son's request, we made a nest and a baby bird to feed

Materials

 Nest
Small Paper Plate
Brown and Yellow Construction Paper
Glue Stick
Scissors
Popsicle Stick
Brown Crayon
Blue Construction Paper

 Baby Bird
Small white paper plate cut into the shape of a baby bird (kind of a bowling pin shape)
Orange and Black Crayons
2 Googlie Eyes
Elmer's Glue
2 Feathers
Small Diamond-Shaped Piece of Construction Paper (or better yet, card stock)
Hole Punch
Scrapbook glue tape


How To:

The night before - 

with Elmers Glue
Glue the Popsicle stick to the back of the baby bird that you cut from a paper plate
Glue the 2 feathers to the baby bird shape
Let dry overnight

In the morning -

Baby Bird -

Have child color the bird orange and black
Fold diamond shape in half to form an open beak
Affix with scrapbook tape to bird's face
Attach Gogglie Eyes
With hole punch, punch 3-4 holes inside the mouth, large enough to fit a pipe cleaner easily with minimal dexterity (your child has to be able to insert the worm while holding the clothes pin "mommy bird")

Nest -

Use scissors to cut a small slit in the center of the paper plate using adult scissors (to insert Popsicle stick so the baby bird can sit in the nest)

Have child color the paper plate with a brown crayon (I forgot this step)
You cut brown and yellow paper into strips and apply glue stick to the strips
Have child place the gluey strips to the paper plate to build the "nest"
Once you do that, you can insert the "baby bird" so that it can sit in the nest and wait to be "fed by the mama bird" - the Robin from yesterday's craft

Also, cut out several blue ovals and apply glue stick and have child put the eggs in the nest. 

Now you did a craft together but it's also an activity!

Your child can have fun picking up worms with the clothes pin mama bird and feeding them to the hungry baby bird.

Works on fine motor skills and it's fun!

Spring Robin and Worms Craft and Activity - Fine Motor Skills, Counting, Sorting, Cutting and Painting

Robin with worm in her mouth, in the grass

Materials:

Clothes Pin
Empty cereal box
Green and Brown construction paper
Acrylic paint - Black, Orange, Yellow
Q-Tips and thin paint brush
Googlie Eyes (smallest)
Pipe Cleaners in variety of colors
Child scissors and adult scissors
Scrapbook tape roller
Green crayons

Have child help as much as you think they can handle...

Bird/Robin -

Have child help you paint the clothes pin with a Q-Tip and small brush in orange, black and yellow
When it dries, affix Googlie eyes on either side

Grass Patch -

Cut side off of cereal box
Have child color a brown piece of paper with various green crayon shades for "grass blades"
Cut paper to fit inside cereal box, glue down with scrapbook tape

Use long and short pieces of construction paper (green and brown) to cut "patches of grass", let child cut paper into blades, glue down with scrapbook tape to bottom of cereal box where you glued the brown paper before (bend the blades of grass to make them more "grass-like")

Worms -

Cut pipe cleaners into 3" pieces and fold the pointy ends down in a loop against the pipe cleaner to make rounded tips on each side (so it's not so sharp to play with)

Bend pipe cleaner to make it "wiggly" shaped

Activity

Fine motor skills of "catching" worms with the clothes pin, finding them in the "grass"
Sorting worms by color
Counting how many of each color worm

Ocean Page - English and Spanish (Handprint and Fingerprint painting)

Have child help you paint the ocean, clouds and sun
Use their hand print to make a boat, add construction paper sails once it dries
Use fingerprints with paint to add sea creatures (once the ocean dries)

Draw on faces and features to creatures in the ocean
Label in Spanish and English

Learning Spanish - Bug Garden Page (Fingerprint Painting)

Find and print out a coloring page of a garden with flowers, sun, clouds, fence etc.

Label all of the coloring page with Spanish words

Decide which bugs you'd like to feature and look up the Spanish word for those and jot down somewhere

Use a brush to paint your child's fingertip in a color and make a bug on the paper (red for ladybug etc.), wipe off paint from finger between each "bug" painting

Let paint dry on all bugs and then with a thin black Sharpie outline and add features to each bug

Then label each bug with the Spanish word

Learning Spanish - Ant Picnic Page

 Print out a tablecloth page from Google images onto white paper
Tape or glue on a napkin and small paper plate and I printed a little rhyme on a label

The top left label says:

"10 Ants

Diez little hormigas
Went looking for comida
And they found..."

Then I went to Google images and found and fit onto 5160 labels various fruits we wanted to learn, as well as utensils and the word for napkin, and wrote on the Spanish word for each fruit

After the napkin, plate and labels were affixed
We used a Q-Tip to dot on 3 dots to make 10 ants, drawing on legs and antenna when they dried