5 educational Alloprof activities to celebrate spring with your class

Discussions related to spring can be a great way to get your students thinking about how nature changes at this time of year. Here are a few questions you can ask to get the conversation going:

• What types of clothing do we wear in spring?
• What animals can we see at springtime?
• What are the characteristics of spring? What is the weather like?
• What time of year does spring arrive?
• Have you ever been to a sugar shack?
• What do you like most about spring?
• Why do we do spring cleaning?
• Have you noticed the buds on the trees?
• What happens to the length of the days in spring?

Following your class discussion, give your students a treasure hunt assignment to complete during a walk with their parents. They can observe or collect the items on this short list and share their findings with the rest of the class. As they stroll through their local park or green spaces, they can jot down other interesting discoveries on the second page.

For an additional project, consider having your class put together an herbarium. They can add to it throughout the year and learn all about plant anatomy.

Spring is a perfect time to cultivate your students’ love of reading! Spruce up the classroom reading nook with some spring-themed decorations (e.g., paper flowers, pennants, garlands, origami birds). Your students will be itching to explore the books on display.

Have a brief discussion about spring cleaning to encourage students to bring in books to trade with their classmates. And to spur their interest in both reading and nature, check out this list of French book recommendations for elementary school students.

This spring, watch your students’ vocabulary bloom! If you already have a word wall, liven it up with some creative spring-themed additions:

• Make a word garden with paper flowers or petals
• Set your word wall aflutter with a flock of butterflies (or other pollinators) made out of paper or recycled materials
• Create a word tree, adding new word leaves as spring progresses
• Etc.

Alloprof also has resources to help with learning spring vocabulary. You can encourage your students to learn nature-related words in Nehlueun (link in French). This section of our website features nearly 900 vocabulary words divided into 18 categories. Each word is accompanied by an audio pronunciation clip in Nehlueun and, when available, an illustration to help with comprehension.

Students can also practise spelling a list of spring-themed words with our interactive vocabulary tool. You can access the list using the code nR3npNYpfLKzM8GJagveiv.

A great way to learn what spring is all about is through gardening. Gardening projects stimulate the senses. They give students a chance to do hands-on activities, observe plant anatomy, make hypotheses, and above all, have fun.

There are many different ways to grow seedlings, no matter the available school space and resources. Getting an avocado pit or a small bean to sprout in a bed of cotton, for example, is a simple yet incredibly rewarding activity. You can go a step further by getting some free seeds (and maybe even borrowing gardening equipment) at one of Montreal’s public libraries. Find out whether a similar service is offered in your area.

The spring equinox marks the first day of spring and the steady lengthening of daylight hours, making it the perfect occasion to review concepts such as units of time and the Earth’s rotation. Looking for an interesting project to demonstrate how light moves as the sun’s position changes? Make a sundial!

For this activity, you need the following materials:

• A paper plate (or a large circle cut from cardboard)
• A pencil (or a straw, chopstick, or skewer)
• A marker or pen
• A pointy object (such as a well-sharpened pencil)
• A compass or compass app (optional)
• A watch
• Rocks to keep the sundial in place (optional)

Start by finding a good spot in the schoolyard for your experiment. If you can, begin the activity just before noon.

Stick the pencil (or straw) through the centre of the plate. Tilt the pencil slightly so that it casts a shadow pointing north.

Have the students check which way is north by using a compass, if you have one, or a compass app on your phone.

Weigh the sundial down with rocks if necessary to keep it in place. Come back at 1 p.m. and have your students write the number 1 at the spot on the edge of the plate that the pencil’s shadow is pointing to.

After the activity, you can ask your students to describe what happened. For example:

• How did the length of the shadow change as the sun moved across the sky?
• In which direction did the shadow move on the plate?
• Why does the sun seem to move across the sky?
• Etc.