Take your children for a nature walk. Walking is great exercise, and keeping up a quick pace is healthy, but don’t walk so fast you miss everything nature has to offer. Every now and then slow down and look closely at the signs of spring. Explore these signs with your child. Maybe you will find something you had never noticed before.
Do you know if your child will need a leaf collection any time soon for school? I remember looking for leaves for a leaf collection in the fall when the leaves were bug-chewed and scarred. Get a head-start if the leaves are big enough to collect, and press them in a large book. A leaf collection is fun to do if a teacher assigns it or not.
This puzzle might serve as a springboard of things to look for while you walk. Think about the area where you live, and add more ideas to your list.
Signs of Spring
Across
- A plant that usually has three leaves unless you are lucky and find one with four leaves. It also has pinkish white flowers shaped like balls.
- These are around all year, but they sleep in their hives in the winter. They are busy workers that help our vegetables grow.
- So pretty when they pop out fresh and new on branches and twigs, they feed the trees and plants all year long.
- Yellow flowers in the grass that turn into a ball of fluffy seeds
- Makes for a wet day, but so necessary to make plants grow
- Black and yellow bird that winters in the south and returns to the north in the spring.
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Down
- If you are lucky you might see one of these colorful insects flutter by – a sure sign of spring!
- Found after a good rain, these come in many shapes and colors. Sometimes they are called toadstools.
- Too many to name and varies from one location to another, but these grow on plants and give us much color in the spring.
- Smaller than a robin, this bird is blue with a red breast.
- This is the name for a baby bird of any kind. You may see them staying close to their mama and papa birds waiting to be fed. They flutter their wings and make peeping sounds to say they are hungry.
- They are busy all year long, but you will probably see them working hard in the grass if you look. These insects live underground and make tunnels in the soil.
- A dark brown bird with a red breast that lives year-round in the south but is a sign of spring to those living in the north.
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Word bank: ANTS BLUEBIRD BUTTERFLY CLOVER DANDELION FLEDGLING FLOWERS GOLDFINCH HONEYBEE LEAVES MUSHROOM RAIN ROBIN
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