Spring can be an exciting time for students in the classroom. They are starting to see the sunshine more, flowers blooming, butterflies, baby animals, and more! Read on to learn about some spring books you can read with your students, as well as activities to accompany them.
The Golden Acorn
This book by Katy Hudson is great for teaching students about teamwork. It includes fun spring characters like squirrel and rabbit.
Simply Special Ed has a bundle of spring book companions, which includes this story. You can get this individual book companion here. The bundle includes visuals, a story map, vocabulary cards, a craft, and a comprehension quiz.
The visuals to go along with this book can be helpful to all students, especially students who have special needs. The visuals help them learn vocabulary words, such as “tangled”, “pacing”, etc.
Students can make their own golden acorn by painting the acorn template. They can also practice their writing skills by tracing the word “acorn” using the provided sentence starter. Or if students are more advanced in their writing skills, they can write a sentence about their favorite part in the book, describing the acorn they made, and more.
Kite Day
Flying kites in the spring can be a fun activity for kids on a windy day. This spring book by Will Hillenbrand tells the story of bear and mole’s kite flying adventure. It is included in the SSE spring book companion bundle, and is available for individual purchase here.
Students can learn vocabulary words such as “meadow” and “gust”. They can complete a story map and make their own paper kite.
Writing can be differentiated based on student needs and ability levels. This pack contains a sentence starter and a tracing activity for students. Students can also write their own story about a kite, write about a time they flew a kite, etc.
Lola Plants a Garden
This book by Anna McQuinn tells the story of a little girl that learns patience while planting a flower garden. Many students love to plant seeds in the spring and watch them grow. Reading this book and completing the companion activities while teaching about seeds is a great way to combine literacy and science.
SSE has the individual book bundle available here.
The bundle includes a story map, visuals, vocabulary, a craft, and more. Students can paint their own paper plate and write about their flower after reading the book.
After reading the book, students can learn about how flowers grow. I worked at a school that had a greenhouse on campus, so students could help water the plants and learn how they grow (pictured below). If your school does not have something like that accessible, you can have students grow their own plants by planting seeds in small cups.
When Spring Comes
This book by Kevin Henkes shows how nature changes from winter to spring. You can purchase the individual bundle from SSE here.
This book is great for teaching students about sequencing and following the changes that happen from season to season (first snow melts, then birds hatch, etc). Students can also make fun handprint flowers.
You can also have students explore flowers and other spring objects in a sensory bin/table (shown below).
Spring is a great time to incorporate books into the classroom. Hopefully these book companions work well with your students!
