10 Spring Books and Activities for Little Learners
Happy spring time, sweet friends! This a lovely time of year is so happy with so many new sprouts and little animals and creepy crawlies. To help you welcome all the new beginnings that start in spring, here are my current favorite spring picture books along with a few ideas for how to use each one to teach some reading, writing, or phonics skills. Just click the specific title or matching picture to check out the book!
Also…SPOILER ALERT: I’ll give a quick synopsis of what each book is about and the literacy skills I think you could easily teach and practice using each book. So, just so I don’t spoil the ending of the stories for you if you wanted to be surprised, you’ve been fairly warned. Haha! :)
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This little book is a super basic, informational book about what spring time looks like. It’s perfect for toddlers and preschoolers who are learning about what spring is and what happens when spring arrives. There is one sentence on each page, talking about the grass, flowers, winds, and storms that can happen in the spring. Then, it continues through the harvest and winter seasons briefly and ends up again in the spring.
I like this book for the simple explanations of what goes on in the spring and how the seasons change throughout the year. It would be a great springboard for little ones to draw pictures to illustrate some of the sentences in the book, to practice recognizing and reading sight words, and also for recognizing common seasonal words.
This is the story of a young boy names Liam who lives in a crowded city where no one spends time outdoors. Liam loves being outside and one day on a walk through his polluted town, he discovers an old, broken-down railway. He was very curious, so he climbs the stairs to the top of the railway, and discovers some dying plants. He begins to take care of the plants in the best way he knows how and as the weeks go on, he notices that they start to grow and look like a real garden. But, this garden is a very curious one and it starts to spread all over the railway. When winter comes, Liam can’t visit his garden so he plans for spring and manages to bring all his little plants back to life! Then, the curious garden begins to slowly spread all over town, bringing joy and turning other people into unexpected gardeners too.
The illustrations in this book are beautiful and colorful! And it’s great to use as a mentor text for descriptive writing, as a springboard for creative writing projects, or as inspiration for student art or stories.
This book is the perfect way to teach little learners how a seed grows! The book uses very simple, accurate vocabulary and the pictures are super calm and happy. It describes different kinds of seeds and how and what they grow into. It also walks you through a simple way to plant your own seeds and watch them grow into seedlings!
I love this book for its’ simple science connection, as well as how easy it is to use as a procedural and nonfiction text. It’s a great book for young kids to model how to write about nonfiction topics as well!
Little Raindrop is a perfect way to learn about the life cycle of a raindrop! This story is told in the first person and rhymes throughout the book. as the raindrop takes you through his life. He starts in a cloud and falls down in a loud rainstorm. He and all his raindrop friends fall from the sky happily until they see the earth and are shown through by the sun, creating a rainbow! He continues down to the ground where he falls on a cat, sinks into the dirt, and becomes a drink for some flower’s roots. When the sun comes out, he’s turned into mist and evaporates into the sky where he joins his raindrop friends as a cloud again. There is a brightly illustrated diagram of the water cycle at the very end that explains how water travels around and around!
This story would be great for inspiring creative writing, learning about colors and the water cycle, and to practice identifying rhymes. It works well for a science lesson, mentor text for writing, or for little ones learning about colors and rhyming. We’ve used this book to practice colors a lot this spring along with these rainbow activities and sensory bins!
The Yellow Butterfly is the story of two little kids who are playing in the yard when they hear a small, yellow butterfly singing! They are completely amazed and they tell their family all about it over dinner. Their grandfather explains that yellow butterflies are magical and tells an ancient story of how these butterflies were trained to grant wishes. So, the next day, they come up with a plan to catch a yellow butterfly so they can have a wish granted. They look for days and days before finally getting to talk to one, but when they finally catch it, it doesn’t turn out the way they expected.
This book is super magical and imaginative, which makes it a great springboard for creative writing and crafts. I’d also recommend this book as a good mentor text for learning new vocabulary words and illustrating a story in unique ways.
6. In Like a Lion Out Like a Lamb
This book is all about how the month of March comes in like a lion, loud and stormy, as we’re waiting for spring to arrive. Then, one morning, the storm sounds calm down into breezes and flowers and softly changes into a sweet lamb. It explores what happens to that big lion from the beginning and shows how the little lamb ushers in the spring season.
This book is PERFECT for learning about personification and is written in a very poetic form, making it a great mentor text for a variety of literacy skills.
7. Mrs. Peanuckle’s Flower Alphabet
Mrs. Peanuckle’s Flower Alphabet is an adorable alphabet book with the absolute BEST flower illustrations! It’s a really cute book that give opportunities to practice the letters of the alphabet by naming and explaining unique flowers that start with that letter of the alphabet.
This book is perfect for practicing letter recognition, letter sounds, colors, and lots of fun writing opportunities! This sensory bin is a fun way to tie color identification to this adorable book…all about the lovely, spring flowers!
This precious book from Joanna Gaines and her family is the story of how their family’s garden first began, small and unexpected. It’s a really sweet story about how the young Gaines’ children learned about plants so they could take care of them well and didn’t give up when things didn’t always go their way. They started with just one fern, but soon more and more plants joined the family! The indoor plants soon grew into an outdoor garden and the whole family learned a lot about planning, the outdoors, and the way plants grow and thrive.
The book is written with very normal, playful language and the illustrations are absolutely STUNNING. It’s great for teaching about the details of how plans grow and what they need, but it’s also PACKED with a bunch of deeper life lessons about kindness, bravery, collaboration, the miracles of nature, planning, and, most importantly, never giving up!
This book is a wonderful book for teaching about character traits, how plants grow, and descriptive writing. Read it as part of a lesson plan that includes planting seeds and watching them grow or have students write about lessons they can learn from the kids in the story. It’s a perfect read aloud for plant-loving students who want to become gardeners themselves one day!
Grow, Candace, Grow is a heart-warming story about a little girl who loves spring and inspires a class garden at her school! But, when the garden is planted, she’s disappointed that her favorite part of gardens, the FLOWERS, were no where to be seen. Her teacher explained that the seeds needed time, sun, water, and good soil to grow, so the students needed to be patient. As the days went on, Candace grew impatient and decided to give the plants some extra water. When nothing sprouted the next week, her class is very upset with Candace since she was the reason their sprouts hadn’t grown yet. So, she came up with a plan to buy new seeds, read more books about gardening, and told her teacher her ideas. The class planted a new garden and this time, Candace was patient and watered the plants when they NEEDED it and soon, little plans began to sprout up. Her patience paid off when their whole garden was filled with colorful flowers that spring!
This book is amazing for teaching about patience and doing the right thing. It’s also a great book for learning about how plants grow, how to care for them, and how to keep trying, even when things don’t work out the first time. You can use this one for a springboard for writing personal narratives, learning about cause and effect, and even to practice sequencing events.
10. Stick and Stone
Stick and Stone is the story of a stick and a stone who are all alone, but quickly become friends. When others are unkind to stone, Stick sticks up for him
This book is written in simple sentences, has really memorable illustrations, and is perfect for practicing inferring and making predictions. It’s also great for learning about true friendship and kindness, as well as feelings and loyalty.
These spring books bring a lot of sunshine to our days around here. I hope they do the same for you. If you have a favorite, drop a comment letting me know! :) I love hearing which books are most popular with mamas, teachers, and all their kiddos! Happy spring, lovelies.
Cheering you on!
