Welcome to our “The Enchanted Spring Meadow: Spring-time Animals” series. For this week, we focused on a different spring time creature each day, bringing some fun & educational adventure mixed in with some crafts and activities!
For this day, we focused on the amazing builders, beavers! This semi-aquatic animal is very important for the spring season. Read on to check out our day!
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 Our relaxed & learning fun day kicks off with an introduction to the day’s theme. Then, we move onto videos and themed activities (reading, writing – or story telling – time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments). Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Beavers may not be the first animal that little ones think of when someone says ‘Springtime’ but they are very important for the spring season. Here are some links to brush up on these amazing builders.
- Beavers by National Geographic Kids
- Beaver Facts for Kids by Kiddle
- Signs of Spring 7: Beavers by Ecologist’s Notebook
WHAT TO WATCH
We find that mixing in a short video themed to our day is a great way to add some learning fun! We try to pick informative videos OR mix in a cartoon favorite (where they don’t even realize they’re learning). Below are some of the videos we picked from for the day:
- Beaver Dams by PBS Learning Media
- American Beavers by Nat Geo Kids
- Beavers for Kids | Learn all about these nocturnal engineers by Learn Bright
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
What’s more fun than taking a break and having a simple snack??? Including the snack in your theme of the day! We find that our kiddos are more than happy to eat the snacks they create especially when they can arrange them into fun shapes and scenes!
For this day, we had our little ones build a ‘dam’ using pretzels and nutella. For added fun, they added blueberries to symbolize the water and some peas on the end end for grass.
READING
It’s no secret that reading is an important part of learning, which is why we pick out a handful of books that are fun and filled with some learning tidbits. For our older ones, we have them fill out some worksheets (or let them create some of their own comics) to describe what they read and/or learned! These are a few we picked from for the day:
- Beavers: Radical Rodents and Ecosystem Engineers by Frances Backhouse
- Beavers (Superpower Field Guide) Paperback – by Rachel Poliquin
- How Beavers Build Dams Using Math by Mathnasium
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing is a great way to keep kids learning by both encouraging their creativity and thought process as well as helping them practice their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: ANIMAL, SPRING, BEAVER
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices. This was our writing prompt of the day (and we offered up some examples as well) but definitely pick something your kiddo might be interested in writing about!
- Beavers are considered nature’s engineers because of her great building skills. Write a short story about a young beaver that would rather become an artist than build dams. How do their friends and family react?
- Write a short story imagining beavers lived in societies like ours (with schools, other jobs, etc). Create a day in the life of an engineer beaver – are they the ‘celebrities’ of their colony? What about dentists? Do the beavers like the dentist?
CREATE & CRAFT
If you’ve got a crafty little one, a simple craft is a great way to keep them interested in the topic. While their creative juices are flowing, you can also chat about what they’ve learned so far or ask them what else they’re excited about learning! Below are some of the crafts we looked at:
- Womple Studios | DIY Paper Bag Canadian Beaver by Womple
- 3D Floating Beaver Craft
- Racoon & Beaver Craft Magnet
STEM & STEAM ACTIVITIES
While crafting and writing get their creativity and imagination flowing, we also like to add in an activity that gets them thinking along the lines of science, technology, engineering, or math! These engaging activities or experiments are a great way to keep them learning!
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our post! If you enjoyed this, please let us know what you think in the comments below and/or follow us on Pinterest
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other Spring Ideas days as well as our DIY At Home Camps!
Happy Learning!
