Create a cheerful Spring bulletin board for your classroom. Combine easy to make pussy willows, blossom branches, and daffodils to make a Spring flower garden.
Take a week to assemble it, adding each type of Spring flower during class time as the children complete the art projects.
Vary the length and widths of the papers you give to the children for their artwork to create a more interesting Spring bulletin board.
When all the daffodils, for example, are exactly the same height and width the bulletin board is not interesting and is too repetitive and uniform. When creating the pussy willow branches, give some children 12-inch lengths of paper and others 8-inch lengths.
Spring Bulletin Board - Pussy Willows
Pussy willows are an early sign of Spring. Children love to feel the soft fuzzy balls on the plants.
- Bring pussy willow into class and let the students feel the soft gray balls
- Tactile experiences will provide opportunities for the use of descriptive vocabulary but gather extras for observation as they are pretty fragile.
- Kids may describe them as soft, fuzzy, wooly, squashy, squishy…
- Help students to observe how the balls are connected to the branch
Try these pussy willow poems before introducing the Spring art.
A Wish - author unknown
A hundred furry kittens
On a pussy willow tree
I wish they’d all turn into cats
And come and play with me.
Who will tell us Spring is here? Pussy-Will-O!
Read Wanda Gags story, “Millions of Cats” after this poem!
Catkin - author unknown
I have a little pussy,
And her coat is silver gray;
She lives in a great wide meadow
And she never runs away.
She always is a pussy, she’ll never be a cat
Because—she’s a pussy willow!
Now, what do you think of that?
Pussy Willow Craft
Materials:
- Brown markers
- Rectangular lightweight card cut into a variety of lengths 12 - 18 inches and about 6 inches wide
- Pale gray paint (mix a few drops of black at a time into white liquid tempera paint)
Procedure:
- Students make branches using a brown marker and lightweight card
- Students dip their finger into shallow dishes of gray paint and put gray dots on their branches
Tip! You’ll have to stop some kids or their whole picture will be covered in gray dots. They can always start again on another piece of paper.
Spring Bulletin Board - Daffodils
Daffodils are one of the first flowers of Spring and are easy for children to make. There are many varieties available to bring into the classroom and show the children before they make the daffodils for an art project.
Bethany Robert’s Daffodil poem:
A little yellow cup
A little yellow frill,
A little yellow star,
And that’s a daffodil.
Materials:
- Yellow paper baking cups
- Yellow circles the size of the baking cups
- Cut yellow tissue or crepe paper petals
- Cut green leaves and stems of various lengths
Procedure:
- Students glue 5 petals around the yellow circle
- Students glue a stem on the other side of the yellow circle
- Students glue baking cup onto petal/stem section
Spring Bulletin Board - Branches and Blossoms
Materials:
- rectangular lightweight card cut in a variety of widths and lengths
- brown markers
- tissue paper 1″ squares in a variety of pink colors
- white glue in cottage cheese container lids
- pencils
Procedure:
- Students wrap 1″ squares colored tissue paper around the end of a pencil, dip them into a shallow container of white glue and then press the tissue onto the paper
- When the glue is dry the students cut around their blossom branches to complete this kids Spring craft
Spring is Coming
Spring is coming, spring is coming.
How do you think I know?
I see a flower blooming,
I know it must be so.
Spring is coming, spring is coming,
How do you think I know?
I see a blossom on the tree,
I know it must be so.
~ Author Unknown ~