Spring has sprung! It’s time for some springtime family fun. This is the time of year we all want to celebrate the flowers blooming, the greening of the trees and grass and weather that support outdoor play! After a long winter, getting outdoors, connecting with nature and having some family connection time can do wonders for parent-child connections and sibling bonding as well.
We know that play is a child’s language and it’s also the mechanism through which children find connection between their world, their relationships and the reality of all their natural curiosity about the world around them. In this article, I’m going to provide some means for Springtime family fun for you and your children to help enhance family bonds and give children ample opportunity to explore and playfully express.
7 Ideas for Springtime Family Fun
- Go camping in the back yard. Pitch a tent. Set up a fire ring. Bring the sleeping bags, flashlights, ingredients for s’mores and get ready for some springtime family fun. Encourage your children to listen for all the sounds of springtime as the sun sets.
- Plant a small garden. Using an egg carton, you and your child can nurture some seedlings to take root and every day with a little nurturing sunlight and water your family can watch as the seedlings sprout and grow. When it’s time to move them to a larger planter, it can be a metaphor for your child’s growth and the changes that come along.
- Do some bird-watching. Invite your child to do some research with you as to the birds that live in your area. Look at photos, draw pictures of the birds and create a bird feeder you can hang outside the windows of your house to attract them. Add some binoculars to the springtime fun of bird-watching and you and your child can observe the bird behavior up in the high tree limbs too.
- Create a family bouquet together. With so many blooms in sight, one ideal for springtime family fun is to cut some flowers from the yard and together create a beautiful spring bouquet to enjoy on the family dinner table.
- Make a family fairy garden! Your child will love the chance to join with you in imagination land. Engage with your child’s imagination and use this tutorial to learn how!
- Take a ball to the park. A soccer or kick ball and any park with a big grassy, green field will do. Invite your child to join you in a little springtime family fun in the field, moving the ball down the field with only your feet. Kick it back and forth. Giggles and family bonding will definitely follow.
- Create a nature-focused sensory calming bottle together. With your child, go on a nature-item hunt and get set up for combining nature with calm in a bottle. Here is a tutorial for some inspiring step-by-step instructions!
Embrace the opportunity for some springtime family fun at this time of year that is so full of metaphors for renewal, new hope, new beginnings and invitations from nature all around us. As we experience these gifts of the season ourselves, children are also learning to do the same while connecting with parents and siblings playfully along the way.