{"id":7460,"date":"2018-04-24T08:30:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T12:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/?p=7460"},"modified":"2018-04-19T13:10:46","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T17:10:46","slug":"spring-outdoor-play-making-the-most-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/stress-busters\/spring-outdoor-play-making-the-most-of-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Outdoor Play:  Making the Most of the Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content-header\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"content-area\">\n<div id=\"node-395\" class=\"node node-type-greendesk\">\n<div class=\"node-inner\">\n<div class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"terms terms-inline\"><span style=\"color: #000000;font-weight: bold\">What outdoor play activities would you recommend in the springtime?<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"content\">\n<p>Springtime is ideal for outdoor play. After a cold, gray winter, the blue skies, new leaves, and warm breezes beckon everyone to come out and play for a while. In the excitement of a new season of growth, here are some activities to make the most of all that spring has to offer.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Rainy days:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>April showers bring May flowers, but what kinds of play do April showers bring? Wet days are a challenge, but they are also an opportunity for special kinds of creative outdoor play. When it\u2019s not thundering and unsafe, try some of these outdoor activities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Puddle play \u2013 splashing, floating, seeking for creatures, comparing reflections.<\/li>\n<li>Mud play \u2013 make the most of the wet mud while it\u2019s there! It helps to have a backup set of clothes to get muddy in, and then just hose off at the end.<\/li>\n<li>Rain walks \u2013 waterproof gear and boots, or some umbrellas keep everyone (mostly) dry while exploring.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When it\u2019s too cold or too thundery to be outside, try these rain-related indoor activities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Learn about and pretend to be wildlife who benefit from the rain, such as ducks, turtles, frogs, and salamanders<\/li>\n<li>Create watercolor paintings with the rain \u2013 experiment with putting papers out in the rain for a minute and then painting on them, or put them out after painting and see what textures the rain adds.<\/li>\n<li>Create garden collage artwork of pictures of plants that will grow in the spring and summer (with cutouts from plant catalogs and gardening magazines).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Warm, sunny spring days:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The best days of spring come with blue skies, warm breezes, and bright flowers and leaves. Try out some of these activities to maximize the pretty days of spring:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Measure leaf growth, record when the buds open and compare different plants\u2019 growth.<\/li>\n<li>Create art with flowers.<\/li>\n<li>Pick flowers to bring inside the classroom.<\/li>\n<li>Observe bugs and other creepy-crawlies.<\/li>\n<li>Watch for birds and learn about what kinds migrate through your region in the spring.<\/li>\n<li>Learn about baby animals (who are frequently born in the spring), with visiting bunnies, baby chicks, or ducklings.<\/li>\n<li>Take photographs \u2013 let the children take photos of their observations of spring with disposable cameras or kid-friendly digital cameras.<\/li>\n<li>Have a picnic day where all the day\u2019s normal indoor activities happen outdoors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Cool and windy spring days:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The changing seasons bring changing weather patterns and often, breezy spring days. Weather forecasts usually include a prediction for winds, which can be helpful when planning some of these activities.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Play with the wind \u2013 bring fabric, ribbons, and wind catchers to play with outdoors.<\/li>\n<li>Make and fly kites \u2013 kites fly best with wind speeds between 5 and 15 mph.<\/li>\n<li>Measure wind direction and speed with the &#8220;wet&#8221; finger technique.<\/li>\n<li>Read some windy day stories outdoors.<\/li>\n<li>Make and install wind chimes and windsocks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Gardening:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Spring is high season for gardening as the soil warms up and the days grow longer. Here are some ideas to get your imagination started on the many possibilities for spring gardening with children. These activities can happen in almost any weather \u2013 weeding a garden bed can be a lot easier right after a rain, for instance. For more thorough information and guides, the NLI Green Desk has multiple posts on children\u2019s gardening,\u00a0<a title=\"Green Desk posts on plantings\" href=\"https:\/\/naturalearning.org\/greendesk\/tag\/29\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Prepare the garden for the season\u2019s plantings, see the\u00a0<a title=\"Early Spring in the Garden\" href=\"https:\/\/naturalearning.org\/content\/early-spring-garden\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Early Spring in the Garden<\/a>\u00a0post for more.<\/li>\n<li>Start sugar snap pea seeds<\/li>\n<li>Build a mini green bean teepee<\/li>\n<li>Create newspaper pots and start seeds<\/li>\n<li>Plant strawberries<\/li>\n<li>Sow wildflower seeds<\/li>\n<li>Plant sprouts in the window to eat<\/li>\n<li>Serve spring seasonal snacks (sprouts, radishes, sugar snap peas, etc.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"field field-type-filefield field-field-sidebar-image\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item field-item-1 odd\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"imagefield imagefield-field_sidebar_image\" src=\"https:\/\/naturalearning.org\/sites\/default\/files\/sidebar_imgs\/Friendly%20Ave%20IMG_7329.JPG?1367956951\" alt=\"\" width=\"257\" height=\"194\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What outdoor play activities would you recommend in the springtime? Springtime is ideal for outdoor play. After a cold, gray winter, the blue skies, new leaves, and warm breezes beckon everyone to come out and play for a while. In &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/stress-busters\/spring-outdoor-play-making-the-most-of-the-season\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9193321,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[313094,241883],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-maintenance","category-stress-busters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paB9fc-1Wk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9193321"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7462,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions\/7462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/healthyhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}