Fun! Spring activities for children: recreation and hands-on play
We’ve gathered springtime games and activities we’d love children to experience.
After making it through winter and with the weather getting warmer, it’s the perfect season to get moving outdoors.
Many children have probably been eagerly waiting for this time of year.
In this article, we’ll introduce recommended games and recreational activities, focusing on those unique to spring.
We’ve included activities you can enjoy near home as well as leisure outings ideal for spring, so please use this as a reference when planning family trips, everyday play, or outdoor activities at daycare or kindergarten!
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Fun! Spring Activities for Kids: Recreation & Hands-on Play (61–70)
Make a tulip with origami
Speaking of spring, it’s the season when nature sprouts, and among its flowers, tulips are a particularly lovely and famous symbol of the time.
How about making tulips out of origami? It’s easy and approachable.
Fold tulips in a variety of colors and have fun decorating your room or notebook with them.
Making sakuramochi
When it comes to springtime treats, sakuramochi comes to mind.
The salted cherry leaves have just the right amount of saltiness and pair perfectly with the sweet mochi.
Even if you usually buy them ready-made, making them with your children could become a wonderful memory.
Did you know sakuramochi looks and is made differently in the Kanto and Kansai regions? Talking about that while making them together makes it even more fun.
Freshly made sakuramochi is absolutely delicious.
Making a Mother’s Day present
Mother’s Day is a day to express gratitude to our mothers.
The date and even the name differ from country to country.
It used to be common to give red carnations if your mother is living and white carnations if she has passed away, but nowadays many people don’t pay much attention to the color.
Carnations every year are nice, but how about giving a handmade gift this year? A thoughtfully crafted message card or a “shoulder massage coupon” is a timeless present.
But since it’s a Mother’s Day gift, Mom shouldn’t help too much with it!
amusement park
Now this is a can’t-go-wrong kind of recreation: the amusement park! From popular theme parks to nostalgically retro parks, let’s enjoy the amusement parks all across Japan.
Depending on age there may be height restrictions, so it’s best to plan ahead.
In fact, the fun of amusement parks starts with everyone making the plan together! Just thinking about the outing is exciting, isn’t it?
Try growing vegetables
Spring is actually the perfect time to start a home vegetable garden! That’s because there are many kinds of vegetables you can plant in spring, and plenty of them are easy to grow.
Many spring-planted vegetables can be harvested in summer—tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, and many other delicious crops.
For young children, the experience of planting and caring for something themselves, watching it grow, then harvesting and eating it is a wonderful chance to learn the importance of food and the responsibility of taking care of living things.
It’s a three-for-one activity: fun to tend, tasty to eat, and full of valuable lessons.
Make a carp streamer
In households with small children, many probably start displaying carp streamers from mid-April in preparation for Children’s Day, right? If you’re going to put them up anyway, why not take the opportunity to make them by hand together with your child? Cut construction paper into the shape of a carp streamer and draw patterns with crayons, or tear up colored paper and glue the pieces on to create your own colorful koi nobori! If your child is old enough to handle a slightly more complex craft, there’s also a way to make a carp streamer using a paper cup as the base and adding decorations.
Make a wonderful carp streamer that suits your child’s age and abilities.
BBQ
When it comes to classic spring recreation, it has to be BBQ! Just hearing the word is like magic that gets you excited.
With today’s camping and outdoor boom, home improvement and big-box stores carry a huge range of BBQ gear, which ramps up the excitement even more.
Enjoying meat in the pleasant outdoor weather somehow makes both the meat and the vegetables taste better than usual, doesn’t it? Let’s all savor this little luxury together!
athletics
When the long, cold winter ends and the weather warms up, you naturally want to head outside and move your body, right? In times like that, how about an outdoor adventure park? It’s sure to get your heart racing with a big adventure that’s different from the playgrounds and neighborhood parks you usually visit.
It really does feel great to get your body moving!
Wordplay with shepherd’s purse (pennycress)
Nazuna, one of the seven herbs of spring, is also known as “penpen-gusa” (literally, penpen grass).
Have you ever wondered why it’s called that? There are various theories, but one says the name comes from the heart-shaped seed pods beneath the flowers, which resemble the plectrum used for playing the shamisen.
If you gently pull the heart-shaped pod downward so it doesn’t break off and then twirl it like a pellet drum, the pods strike and make a soft “pen-pen” sound.
It’s a small sound, but children might be delighted by this unexpected sound from nature! And not just kids—grown-ups, give it a try too!
grass sledding
When spring comes, blue grass starts growing on the banks and mountain slopes.
How about a simple sled ride you can make with just a single piece of cardboard? Fold one end of the cardboard, thread a string through it, tie it, and secure the folded end with duct tape to create a handle.
You can also make holes in the cardboard and thread the string through.
Adjust the length of the string together with your child to find what works best.
