3 Elementary Activities: Spring Fling

Looking for a few new elementary activities to use as the weather warms up? Look no further than these three spring fling ideas!

3 Elementary Activities: Spring Fling

1. Spring Planting Party

Serve raw vegetables with dip and give each child a small flower to take home. Ask each child to bring a parent to the party. This not only helps with the work, but also encourages parents and children to work in ministry together.

Activity ideas:

• Plant a tree for an older person or on the church lawn.
• Adopt a spot in the churchyard and plant flowers or shrubs. Place a long, flat stick beside each plant. Paint your class’ name on the stick. Have each child add his or her name. Plan for continued care of your class’ plants.
• Plant flower boxes, large pots, or hanging baskets with flowers to beautify the church or an older person’s home.
• Select a plot of ground for a vegetable garden, such as at the home of an older person or at a nursing home. Plant the garden during your party and discuss how your class can tend or harvest it. Decide who’ll receive the produce.

2. Spring Prayer Baskets

Have children bring their empty Easter baskets (have some on hand for children who don’t have one). Fill the baskets with potpourri. Have children make construction paper flowers, leaving enough room on each flower to write a person’s name. Then have children think of people or situations they’d like the class to pray about. Have children write all the prayer needs on their flowers and place them in their baskets. Encourage kids to keep their baskets beside their beds, take a flower or two out every evening and morning, and say a prayer for that person or situation.

3. New Life

Use waxed onions to symbolize new life from what appears to be dead, something kids can see around them during spring. If children are very young, do this as children watch. Carefully supervise older children.

You’ll need:

• an electric frypan
• an empty tin can
• paraffin or old candles
• crayons
• small to medium sprouted onions

Fill the electric frypan about half full of water and place the tin can in the water. Place paraffin or old candles and crayons in the can. Bring the water to a boil and simmer until the crayons and wax have melted. There should be enough melted wax in the can to cover the bulb of an onion. Keep the water simmering, and add water throughout the process to keep the pan half-full. Hold an onion by the sprout and dip it into the hot wax just enough to cover the bulb. Lift it out and allow it to air dry for a few seconds. Continue dipping the onion as many times as needed to achieve the desired color. Dip the bulb quickly, being careful that the wax accumulated on the onion doesn’t melt. Place the colored onions on a bed of Easter grass in a basket.

These will keep up to six weeks if kept out of the sun and away from direct heat. The tops of the onions will continue to grow, symbolic of the Resurrection. When the tops are grown, cut them off and use them in salad. Then break away the wax from the remainder of the bulbs and plant them in the yard. They’ll produce more bulbs.

Looking for more ideas for spring? Check out these posts! You can also find many more craft ideas in the Encyclopedia of Bible Crafts for Children!

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