Spring has finally sprung, which means the days are getting longer, the weather is getting a little bit warmer, and the natural world is bursting back to life! This means it’s the perfect time to get your Early Years Foundation Stage pupils outside exploring and making the most of the improved weather.
At A&S Landscape, we’re truly passionate about encouraging children to explore the great outdoors, and one great way to help them achieve this is by investing in a primary school canopy. In this blog, we’ll showcase some of our favourite canopies, as well as take you through some creative and innovative spring activities for EYFS.
Ready to embrace the fresh air and get outside? Let’s dive into it!
What are The Benefits of Spring Outdoor Play for Early Years?
Before we jump into our creative EYFS spring activities, do you know that there are multiple reasons why spring outdoor play is great for students and pupils?
Being outdoors in spring can improve health as well as social and emotional wellbeing, and physical development is an essential part of high-quality early-year education. Spring outdoor play and activities aren’t just about fun (although this is a key part of it!). Being outdoors in the fresh air for three hours every day can help to benefit brain and body functioning, as well as letting children gain new skills and develop a deeper appreciation for the natural world.
For more information on the importance of outdoor learning, check out our blog post: Why Learning in Nature Could Help Your Students.
Some other benefits of spring outdoor play for early years include:
- Physical development – Spending time outdoors, especially playing, can have a huge positive impact on physical health. If your school has a large playground or wide open spaces, children can run, jump, climb, and skip to their heart’s content! These kinds of activities help with coordination and muscle strength.
- Cognitive development – Problem solving and creativity are essential for cognitive development, and being outdoors can offer more opportunities to be creative and solve problems. The great outdoors offers many playing scenarios, whether that’s building a fort made out of sticks or another of our spring EYFS activities below.
- Social and emotional development – Outdoor play also provides perfect opportunities for social interactions and collaborations. Whether they are playing in the playground, taking part in group games, or exploring nature with their friends, children learn important social skills when spending time with other pupils. They learn about communication, cooperation, and even conflict.
- Creativity and imagination – Exposure to the outdoors provides endless inspiration for imaginative play which encourages children to think creatively and make up their own games and stories. Being outdoors also exposes children to a variety of sights, sounds, textures, and smells, all of which help to ignite their imagination.
- Connection with nature – Time spent in nature allows children to explore plants, flowers, and more of the natural environment around them. In fact, children need to spend time in nature. Spending time outside aids in topping up on vitamin D which can be crucial for child development, helping to maintain a healthy body and mind.
Our Creative Spring EYFS Activities for Your Pupils
We know that stepping outside of the classroom and into the great outdoors is a no-brainer. But what are the best and most fun EYFS spring activities? Luckily for you, below, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most creative and innovative spring activities for EYFS that will promote social skills and of course encourage learning.
Let’s have a look at them in a bit more detail…
1. Easter Egg Hunt
First up on our spring activities for EYFS is an Easter egg hunt. The springtime is all about Easter, and let’s face it, the idea of an Easter egg hunt is exciting in itself! Children love treasure hunts, and this is no different apart from the reward of chocolate or hollow eggs. Children will need to pay close attention to their surroundings to spot the hidden eggs, which hones their observation skills and encourages them to look at the environment around them.
You could hide some eggs in tricky spots where pupils might need to think more creatively and problem-solve to figure out where they are. It’s also a great opportunity for pupils to work together in smaller teams and groups, sharing their findings and celebrating their successes.
2. Tidy up Time
Another great outdoor spring activity is to encourage the idea of a big spring clean. Spring is all about tidying and new beginnings, and you can easily implement this into your EYFS curriculum. Tidying up can also be a collaborative effort, with children working together to tidy up their own mess and asking each other where each item belongs.
This is also a great idea to implement at the end of any messy activities, as it is key to remind children that everything has a ‘place’ and should be put away once played with. A tidy environment is a safe environment – while pupils have more freedom to roam around outdoors, they are exposed to risks of slipping and tripping. A tidy space is also beneficial for concentration and creating a sense of calm and order.
3. Lifecycle Resources
If your pupils like learning about nature and insects, then a caterpillar life cycle activity is perfect and can be easily done outside. Grab some pipe cleaners, crepe paper, and a paper plate, and the rest is all down to the imagination! With the pipe cleaners and crepe paper, get your pupils to create their own caterpillar and butterfly sculptures while you explain to them the life cycle of a butterfly.
Exploring natural life cycles encourages children to ask questions, observe changes, and make predictions. They can learn to think like scientists, leading them to investigate and understand the world around them that goes beyond insects and plants.
4. Nature Scavenger Hunt
Similar to an Easter Egg hunt, you can also get pupils to engage in a nature scavenger hunt! In spring, nature starts to wake up from its long winter sleep. Leaves start to burst off trees, flowers cover the ground, and animals emerge from hibernation. With so much to see, encourage pupils to participate in a visual scavenger hunt.
Give them a list of things to find, like green leaves, springy moss, scented blossom, and mud covered twigs. Pupils will need to pay close attention to their environment to find the items on this list which means using their observation skills and looking closely at details that they might otherwise miss.
5. Painting Flower Pots
Painting a flower pot is an ideal spring activity as it encourages children to be creative outside and prepares flowers for planting in summer. Allow pupils to choose their own colours, designs, and patterns, and allow their individuality to shine. You could go one step further and get the children to mix their own colours, teaching them about the importance of colour theory.
A flower pot doesn’t just have to be for flowers – they can be used to plant vegetables and herbs and go especially well in a school garden. Painting flower pots naturally connects to the theme of spring and gardening, and can also be a great starting point for discussions about plants, growth, and the natural world.
6. Create Easter Baskets and Gardens
Finally on our list of spring activities for EYFS is creating an Easter basket for an Easter garden. This is a great way to educate children about Easter, and what better season to do so than in spring? First of all, select a shallow box or woven basket and fill it with compost. Fill it with interesting things that they find outside, including twigs, pebbles, and flowers.
Complete their garden and basket with a fluffy chick or leftover Easter eggs from your Easter egg hunt. Eggs symbolise new life and rebirth, while flowers and plants symbolise growth and renewal. Adding these items to your Easter baskets and gardens helps pupils connect with the themes of spring.
Make The Most of Outdoor Learning With a School Canopy
It’s all well and good coming up with our creative EYFS spring activities, and while we are optimistic about better weather, it can still unfortunately be rather unpredictable. The solution for creating a welcoming and engaging outdoor learning area? Invest in a school canopy! At A&S Landscape, we’re experts in the outdoor canopy industry, so we know a thing or two about creating unique covered spaces.
Below we’ve got some of our favourite canopies that you can blend into your school…
Motiva Wave™
First up is our ever-so-popular Motiva Wave™. This has all the benefits of our standard designs but with a new and funky look! Thanks to its quirky and unique design, it’s great for encouraging pupils to spend more time outdoors under its distinctive structure. Crafted from a solid steel framework, this canopy is snow-safe and wind-safe, ensuring that pupils can spend time outdoors even if the weather is bad.
The steelwork on this canopy is finished in a Dura-coat™ covering, to any RAL colour that you desire. It also comes with the options of side panels, aluminium guttering and downpipes, and wide-span beams. It’s the perfect choice for energetic pupils and those who want to spend a fun-filled spring.
Motiva Linear™
Another canopy that will inject some colour into your outdoor area this spring is our Motiva Linear™. This design is our asymmetric straight roof variant, where one side of the canopy is higher than the other, the standard configuration for canopies that are located against building elevations. The placement of this canopy makes it easy to seamlessly blend the outdoors with the indoors, giving students a sheltered and shaded transition to a fun place beyond the classroom.
Choose from a clear, opal, or coloured roof to inject spring-like colours and a sense of fun into your outdoor classroom. This canopy is also snow-safe and wind-safe, as well as being easy to install so you can expect the process from start to finish to take little to no time. We recommend installing this canopy to ensure that pupils are kept well-sheltered during those unpredictable spring days, whether it’s raining or shining!
Maxima Sail
Our final canopy that is ideal for springtime is our Maxima Sail™. This economical and eye-catching design will instantly transform any area and is available in an unlimited number of shapes, configurations, and colours. You can choose from shade cloth or waterproof fabrics, ensuring that students are protected from the elements during the spring season.
This shade sail design is ideal for outdoor classrooms and is great at keeping pupils sheltered as they participate in outdoor EYFS spring activities. It’s the perfect canopy for spring – please note that the Maxima Sail™ is not designed for high winds or to bear the weight of snow.
That’s not all that we’ve got to offer… check out the rest of our full canopy range here.
Invest in a Canopy This Spring With A&S Landscape!
Hopefully, this blog has provided some inspiration when it comes to spring activities for EYFS. As the weather starts to improve and the sun starts creeping out, it’s extremely important to encourage your pupils to get outdoors.
At A&S Landscape, we’re truly passionate about the design and installation of bespoke canopies. With over 40 years of experience under our belt, you can rely on us to install your canopy with ease and meticulous attention to detail. For more information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. A member of our expert team will be more than happy to help! Or, give us a call on 01743 444 100.
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