A new season means it’s time for new materials! In my room, I’m a big fan of switching things up in the classroom to align with the seasons. This always includes my writing center. If you’re gearing up for spring in your classroom, you’re in the right place! Come along as I share 4 fun and simple spring writing center ideas that your students will love!
The Benefits of Using Seasonal Materials
If you teach in the primary classroom, using seasonal materials is one of the best ways to keep engagement high all year long. Young students need lots of practice with many of the concepts we are focusing on and, it can get a little boring if you’re not careful to switch things up.
To help keep things feeling fresh, I lean heavily into seasonal materials. So even if we’re working on the same skill, it feels brand new when changing up our seasonal themes.
At the beginning of the year, I love setting up my Back to School writing center to kick off the year. We work through those activities in the fall, and then I change things up with new activities when we enter the winter months.
As spring rolls around, I can simply swap out the materials once more in our writing center to make it feel brand new and exciting to my students. This simple change helps to ensure my kiddos stay engaged in what we’re working on and get the practice they need to be successful!
Another fun benefit of seasonal materials is that they tend to align with other things we’re working on in our social studies or science lessons. For example, in the spring our writing center materials focus on things like plants, bugs, butterflies, and community helpers. These also happen to be things we’re learning about in other areas of our curriculum. This is a great way to craft thematic lessons that touch multiple subjects. Ready to get started in your room? Here are 4 fun spring writing center ideas to inspire your planning!
1. Spring Tracing Cards
An important area of focus in the kindergarten classroom is letter formation.
Young students need lots of practice with this to be able to form letters quickly and accurately. I like to help my kiddos work on this skill in a number of ways to keep things interesting. Some of the activities we use for this include:
- tracing with pencils, markers, or crayons
- tracing in shaving cream
- tracing in sand
- using watercolor brushes to write letters
- writing with dry-erase markers
- “rainbow” writing
By using a few different mediums to practice this skill, you can ensure you’ll maintain student interest. In addition to using different materials, I also like to swap out the tracing cards in our writing center seasonally. Our spring writing centers feature alphabet cards with a letter formation font and fun spring pictures. Students can use these to trace with their fingers or dry-erase markers. I also use these as a guide for sand trays, too!
Vocabulary Word Tracing
In addition to the letter tracing cards, we also work on tracing vocabulary words too.
The list of words we focus on are spring themed to help align with our lessons. Some of the themes include:
- Easter words
- gardening words
- insect words
- sports words
- Earth Day words
- community helper words
I use these tracing cards in a few ways. Sometimes, I’ll print them off on copy paper and staple together little booklets for kiddos to use regular writing materials on. Other times, I will give kiddos a laminated copy and dry-erase markers so that they can be used over and over again. They also serve as a great guide for kiddos as they work on creative writing prompts!
2. Spring Writing Center Playdough Mats
Next up, this activity is always a huge hit among my students! Every season, I add a fresh set of “Build and Write” playdough mats to our spring writing center. This activity focuses on fine motor skills beyond writing since kiddos will sculpt a playdough shape in addition to writing the word. Some of the spring playdough shapes included are:
- butterfly
- bee
- ladybug
- dragonfly
- flower
- chick
- seeds
- and more!
If you’re learning about bugs, Easter, gardening, or community helpers, these playdough mats will be the perfect addition to your lessons. I like to print these out and laminate them. Then, children use them with playdough and dry-erase markers. Students will first say the word on the card, then build it with playdough.
Next, they trace the word and practice writing it on their own a few times. For students that need more of a challenge, after tracing the word have them write a sentence using the word. This is a great activity for center time since each card is a multi-step process and supports independence among your young learners. Not to mention, the use of both markers and playdough is a super-engaging activity for your kiddos!
3. Spring Draw and Write Pages
Do you ever use directed drawing lessons in your classroom?
This is one of my students’ favorite activities, so I always make sure to include it in our writing center each season. To use these pages, students will follow the step-by-step directions to draw the image in the box. Some of the pictures include things like:
- a bunny
- an Easter basket
- insects
- a flower
- a bird
- the recycling symbol
- and more!
After they draw their picture, they can write a sentence about what they drew. This is where those tracing and vocabulary cards come in really handy. My students love these pages since they get the opportunity to draw and write. The illustrations are always super cute and diverse too! These are fun to hang on a bulletin board, save for a memory book, or bind together as a seasonal vocabulary book.
4. Spring Finish and Write Prompts
Next up, if you’re looking to help your students expand their writing skills in a fun way, you’ll love these Finish and Write Spring Writing Prompts.
Each page has a portion of a picture that needs to be finished. Students will look at the picture and decide how they would like to finish it as a way to spark some inspiration for their story.
After they draw their picture, they can write a few sentences to illustrate it. These are always so much fun to read since every story will be so very different! The pictures included cover many fun spring topics like Easter, Earth Day, gardening, bugs, and sports.
I like to use these in our spring writing center throughout the season to encourage my students to work on their creative writing skills. Make sure to have your vocabulary cards out as well to help prompt those young writers and assist with spelling.
Even More Spring Writing Center Ideas
I love all of these spring writing center activities since they are low-prep and fun for my students. They only take a few minutes to prepare and I can count on hours of learning! Beyond the ones mentioned here, I like to incorporate many other fun activities to keep our writing center feeling fresh and fun all season long. Here are some of the other activities I swap in and out of our seasonal centers, including our spring writing center:
- Vocabulary Cards: Great for students to refer to as they explore the monthly writing center activities
- You Pick: Students can practice opinion writing by picking an image and writing about their choice
- Label and Write: Students will look at the image and label each part and then write a sentence about the picture
- Make a List: Students will use the picture cards to draw a picture and write the word
- Picture Cards: A set of cards with a picture and word to be used in multiple ways, such as write the room
- Spin a Silly Story: Students will spin two pictures and use them to create a silly story
- Write the Room: Students will search the room for picture cards and write and draw what they find
- Sight Word Sentences: Students will use the picture cards to complete the sight word prompts
- Free Write: Students can use the picture cards to write and draw a story of their choice
- Blank Pages: Students can use these pages to draw and write their own story
In my classroom, I tend to cycle through these activities throughout the month since there are so many different options. We might start with vocabulary and tracing activities, then move on to labeling, and finally work on story writing. I also like to send the writing prompts home for extra practice as well!
Set Up Your Spring Writing Center
If you’re ready to prep your spring writing center and are interested in taking a closer look at any of these activities, be sure to check out my Writing Activities Resource on TpT. These low-prep writing activities will make setting up your own seasonal writing center super simple and quick!
Save This Post
Don’t forget to pin this post to your favorite classroom Pinterest board to keep these spring writing center activities handy!
