Bring spring to life with your students this year. Spring begins on March 20, 2017 and we’re celebrating the season with the arts – drawing and singing. Within each grade band, we’ve selected a focus, resources, and activities to get your students excited and knowledgeable about spring!

Grades K-2

For this grade band, lead a discussion about what signs show students that spring is here (e.g., flowers blooming, birds chirping, grass turning green, etc.) Look at the clip art below and encourage students to draw their own clip art representation of spring’s arrival. Then, have students color their own drawings or trade with another student for coloring. For English language learners, encourage them to add labels to the clip art or student drawings.
 
Spring Flowers
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming
Grades K-2, Clip Art
 
 
Spring Chick
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming
Grades K-2, Clip Art
 
 
Girl and Flower
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming
Grades K-2, Clip Art
 

Grades 3-5

For this grade band, bring spring to life by studying at bird song and behavior during the season. With this combination of video and audio, have students prepare their senses to be in tune with the arrival of spring. Plant a seasonal ear worm with the science song, below.
 
Through the Seasons with Birds: Spring
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming, Science Techbook
Grades K-2, 3-5, Full Video

Spring means the return of migrating birds, the building of nests, and the starting of families. Viewers are able to see a wide variety of birds in this program, and learn how they lay their eggs, claim their territories, and sing their songs.
 
Spring is a Busy Time for Birds: Migration and Nesting
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming, Science Techbook
Grades K-2, 3-5, Full Video

Spring weather spurs migration and nesting. Geese, robins, and great horned owls are among the first to return home and begin nesting.
 
Birds Fill the Springtime Air with Songs
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming, Science Techbook
Grades K-2, 3-5, Full Video

Spring is a season where birds sing songs to peacefully claim mates and territories.
 
Science with a Song (Singing Science): Four Seasons
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming
Grades K-2, 3-5, Song

Outlines the four seasons, and differentiates winter, spring, summer, and autumn (“that’s fall.”)

Grades 6-12

For these grade bands, give students an auditory challenge that will engage them on their travels to and from school: identifying bird calls. Use the sound effects in DE (sampled below) to have students study the calls of a variety of birds and see if they can hear them in nature. Have them develop and then play a game show style quiz.
 
Bird: Blackbird: Blackbird Chirping
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming
Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, Sound Effect
 
 
Bird: Sparrow: Tree Sparrow: Singing
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming
Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, Sound Effect
 
 
Bird: Crow: Black Crow: Fly By With Two Calls
(Canadian Version)
Discovery Education Streaming
Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, Sound Effect
 
 

Spotlight on Strategies: Paper Slide
(Canadian Version)
All Services
Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, Instructional Strategy

This teaching strategy requires students to retell a story or concept by focusing on key points and supporting details or evidence. Adapt this strategy to guide students as they provide a tour through their spring drawings in grades K-2, illustrate a video for the “Four Seasons” song in grades 3-5, and create a tiny documentary about learning bird calls in grades 6-12.