Spring Theme: Bugs, Bees and Butterflies

Lately, we have been doing several Spring Themed activities. Since there are so many fun spring ideas, I decided to divide it out a bit. Here are the activities we have done related to buys, bees and butterflies. These are only a few quick things on the topic. Sometime in the next couple of years I'd like to do a bigger unit where we can go a bit more in depth.

Butterfly math spinner game (from my spring math printables)

Math boxes with butterfly, dragonfly, bee and lady bug erasers.

Insect 3 Part Cards with Toob Insects. We've done this in the past, but it has been so long that it felt new to him.

Buggy Playdough. For this kit I used our Garden Bugs rollers, some bee and hexagon cookie cutters, some textured wooden beads, some flower and bee decorative buttons and some flower buttons.

Butterfly bead pattern making (from my spring math printables).

Digging butterfly beads out of therapy putty to make a graph and answer question. Graphing sheet can be printed here.

To go with the "bee" theme I put a black piece of paper at the bottom of a tray and added some yellow sand. He then used a straw to write his spelling words (his finger would have worked better, but he chose to use the straw).

Caterpillar hole punching activity from Early Learning Ideas

Honeycomb memory game (from my Bee Tot Pack).

Bee 3 part cards (from my Bee Tot Pack).

Sorting bug lifecycles (from The Pinay Homeschooler). I ended up adding a book on ladybugs.

Same activity with butterflies instead.

We have lots of books about bugs, spiders and butterflies, so I only put some on the shelf. From this shelf the favorites were What Makes a Bug a Bug? and Peep Inside Bug Homes.

This shelf had some of our bee books, including Look Inside The World of Bees and Why Do We Need Bees? (I ended up becoming a UBAM consultant because Archer likes these Lift-the-Flap books so much).

Bee and ladybug crafts he did at preschool.

 

Spring Math Activities

I've been having a lot of fun making themed printable math activities the last few months. It's also so much more enjoyable for Archer than just practicing math skills on worksheets. Here are some of the spring activities I made recently.

Math Addition boxes. I used these insect erasers, but you could adapt it by using colored pony beads or something else. I slipped the answer sheet into a page protector so he can do it with dry erase marker.

Something new I decided to try was doing subtraction boxes. The boxes themselves didn't change, but the worksheet is set up as subtraction rather than addition.

 Therapy putty graphing. I put little butterfly pony beads in the putty for him to dig out and build a "graph" with. Then I have a results sheet. You could easily use other beads of the same colors with the same answer sheets.

Flower graphing practice. The top has different types of patterns for him to build on the flowers below. I used the same butterfly pony beads as with the putty activity, but you could easily use regular beads, pom poms or other manipulatives. To help him visualize and keep track of which pattern he's on, I make sure to have enough extra beads that he can put them on the letters at the top. 

Spring flower pot money counting activity. For this I got some itty bitty pots from the craft store, added some cheap flowers and then some coins to each one. I have the recording sheet for him to count the coins and write the totals. I am also anticipating using these pots for other activities as well.

Print the Spring Math Activities Here

Insects and Bugs Vocabulary Cards

Archer eats through new vocabulary materials faster than I can create it! Here are some insect cards that I made to go with the Insect Toob, although you can use them without the toys! You can read about how we use our vocabulary cards and print other cards for free on my Vocabulary Card Page.

Print the Insects and Bugs Vocabulary Cards Here

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