Grades
PreK - 3
12 Spring Topic Ideas and Books to Help Teach Them
Get your class excited for spring with these blooming good books.
In the spring, young learners will buzz with excitement as the weather warms up, baby animals are born, and so much change to witness outside! Channel your students’ energy into learning with these 12 ideas to help engage your class in all the wondrous seasonal transformations that happen in spring.
Spring is full of opportunities to teach intriguing facts about nature! From the exciting stages of plant and animal growth to the breadth of new colors that emerge with the change of the season, exploring real-world facts and photographs can help build literacy skills while sparking an early interest in science.
Pair nonfiction read-alouds with fun-filled activities, such as color by numbers or spring-themed writing prompts your students will love.
Now kids can feel like real pros with this exciting nonfiction series for beginning readers. Kids will be hooked on the thrilling real-world topics and big, bright photos.
This book's vivid photographs capture changes as plants, animals, and people transition from season to season.
Carefully leveled text and supporting photograph provide a joyful exploration of spring while helping build early reading skills.
Immerse students in compelling fiction titles that explore spring themes. Fiction stories help young learners relate to characters’ experiences, deepening their understanding of the natural world. It can also help broaden their awareness of the traits of certain animals, especially if a story is told from an animal’s perspective!
Before spring comes, the trees are dark sticks, the grass is brown, and the ground is covered in snow. But if you wait, leaves unfurl and flowers blossom, the grass turns green, and the mounds of snow shrink and shrink. Spring brings baby birds, sprouting seeds, rain and mud, and puddles. You can feel it and smell it and hear it - and you can read it!
In this easy-to-read chapter book, Poppleton the pig charms young readers with his quirky adventures, whimsical ideas, and engaging community of friends! In three wonderful springtime stories, Poppleton tries his hand at spring cleaning, riding a bike, and staying up all night in his new tent.
When Hoppy the rabbit wakes up on the first day of spring, he discovers a world full of wonderful things. He uses all five senses to sniff the fresh air, listen to the birds sing, taste the fresh grass, watch the lambs in the meadow, and touch the warm ground.
Young learners may see nature outside every day. Spring is the perfect time to introduce them to how trees, plants, and flowers grow.
While nonfiction titles provide valuable insight into the journey from seed pollination to plant growth, fiction titles can help students understand important virtues, such as patience, nurturing, and persistence.
Trees are also a wonderful visual subject for sight word or letter-matching activities. For instance, students may enjoy the hands-on aspect of writing words on leaf cut-outs and matching them to trees on a worksheet.
After Lola reads a book of garden poems, she wants to plant some flowers. She gets books from the library and chooses her plants. Then Lola and her mommy buy the seeds, make the garden, and mark the rows. Now it's time to wait...
Biscuit is excited to explore the garden. From the prettiest flowers to the smallest bugs, there's so much to see. And the little puppy even finds his own special way to add to the garden's bounty!
Ms. Frizzle's class is growing a beautiful garden. But, Phoebe's plot is empty. Her flowers are back at her old school! So, the class climbs aboard the Magic School Bus. And, of course, the kids don't only go back to Phoebe's school, but they go inside one of Phoebe's flowers! Follow the kids' adventure and learn how living things grow.
Butterflies are some of students’ favorite animals to see during spring. Not only are adult butterflies a captivating sight, but their life cycle is also particularly fascinating for young learners. Charming nonfiction and fiction titles that explore the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly will help bring more color into your life cycle lessons.
Is it time yet? This STEM-focused romp about pupation will tickle little ones who know how hard it is to wait.
Follow the adventures of these bright, 3D-molded caterpillars in this fun and funky rhyming counting book with a surprise pop-up at the end!
Lively texts with bold bright illustrations will engage children and make this book a favorite to return to again and again. Includes notes to parents and teachers.
Encourage students to learn and identify the wonders of their favorite animals with nonfiction titles featuring real photographs of incredible creatures. These books spark questions from students and are ideal prompts for fact-recording activities — in which students note the most interesting facts learned about a given animal as you read each book.
It's wonderful springtime, and there are so many flowers, leaves, and seeds outside. Siblings Feather, Flap, and Spike want to explore on a sunny day. But will Spike"s sneezes make him the odd dino out? ACHOO!
This nonfiction book for beginning readers features concise on-level text and full-color photographs about animals in springtime.
Surround yourself in Everything Spring. Stunning photography and detailed imagery capture the uplifting spirit of our favorite season in this counterpart to the National Geographic bestseller A Tree for All Seasons.
Bugs are everywhere in the spring! Help your students discover more about the insects and bugs they’re fascinated by with nonfiction titles. Fiction titles that present a bug's point of view can also help your students learn about biology in an engaging, fun way.
For a counting activity the whole class will love, create a bug jar filled with “worms” (using spaghetti or vermicelli) and ask students to guess how many are inside!
Insect-enamored kids who share the narrator's sentiment won't want to miss this creature-filled extravaganza, which pairs a delightful, nonsense rhyme with bold, full-color collage illustrations.
Fly Guy and Buzz are ready for their next field trip! And in Insects they go outside to learn all about other insects like Fly Guy! With straightforward text, humorous asides, and kid-friendly full-bleed photographs throughout, young readers will learn lots of fun facts about all sorts of bugs.
Wings, legs, tentacles—these 16 insects are facing off to see who will crawl away the winner!
Show students the science behind spring weather by exploring titles filled with interesting facts and stories. Books about weather can help you teach about the typical patterns of spring, where rain comes from, and different types of clouds.
Put their knowledge into practice by asking students to complete a weather journal: for one week, ask them to record the temperature each day, how it felt (icy, humid, pleasant), the type of clouds seen, and their predictions for the next day’s weather. Students can present their findings to the class.
Say hello and goodbye to the seasons in this gorgeously illustrated picture book as children walk through town and nature.
In this lyrical picture book, one spunky little girl discovers just who likes rain—and who doesn't—as she explores the rainy-day habits of the world around her.
In simple concepts and pictures, readers are introduced to clouds. Through their many different shapes and sizes fluffy and white, dark and scary readers will discover where clouds come from and how they make rain and snow.
Grow your students’ vocabulary through sight words! Spring-themed vocabulary books help students build their understanding of science while also boosting their vocabulary skills. With fascinating facts and eye-popping photos, these books help students become more confident readers.
Focusing on familiar seasonal themes, such as apple picking, sledding, planing a garden, and more, these short books helps kids learn simple one- to three-letter words by sight.
Focusing on familiar seasonal themes, such as apple picking, sledding, planing a garden, and more, these short books helps kids learn simple one- to three-letter words by sight.
Boost students' nonfiction skills AND their vocabularies with these super-engaging readers packed with fascinating facts and eye-popping photos! The books include a table of contents, four short chapters, diagrams, maps, captions, a glossary, comprehension questions, and more.
There’s so much to count on in spring, and there are many great books that combine math and spring themes! Help build early math literacy skills while teaching essential concepts like counting, addition, subtraction, shapes, patterns, measurement, and time.
Further develop students’ math literacy with number matching and writing activities. Encourage your students to take counting from the books to their own backyard by counting the flowers, clouds, and birds they encounter in the spring — and sharing their final numbers with the class!
How many insects can you see?
Fun math riddles that will help you stretch your mind. Rhyming verses, clues, and twists to help you quickly solve math problems. Learn clever tricks for counting throughout the year.
Teeming with animals to find, count, and talk about, this bright picture book provides hours of puzzle-solving fun. Explore the rich diversity of the world's habitats while developing basic word and number skills.
Flowers are an enchanting topic for students to explore in spring. Teach about their growth, varieties, and scent with fiction and nonfiction titles that help improve students’ reading comprehension.
How do you make a flower grow? Spaghetti, pizza, and ice cream don't seem to work. When Fran gives up and tosses the flower pot outside, it gets rain, wind, and sunshine...and Fran gets a big, beautiful flower!
I See Flowers introduces emergent readers to a variety of colorful flowers while providing them with a supportive first nonfiction reading experience.
Spring is back and so are the flowers! What happens when Squirrel becomes too protective of a flower and hinders its growth?
Cleaning doesn’t have to be a chore! Share the joy of tidying up with your students with engaging fiction titles that help get everyone in the cleaning mood.
Put their spring-cleaning skills into practice by asking students to create a clean-up poster that lists all the steps they take to clean their bedrooms, desk, or any personal space. They can display the poster as an encouraging reminder in the classroom or at home.
Pig, the world's greediest pug, is back-and he won't get off the couch! Pig spends all day, every day lounging around, bingeing snacks and TV. Trevor tries to convince him to come out and play, but Pig won't budge! Until one day, something happens to get Pig up off the couch once and for all...
Come along for some big fun as your favorite dinosaurs learn to pick up and put away their toys. How do dinosaurs clean their rooms? With trash cans and dusters and brooms!
Manny and his pal Gertie stand up for the environment-because every superhero needs a planet worth saving-in this companion to Super Manny Stands Up! from New York Times bestselling author Kelly DiPucchio and illustrator Stephanie Graegin.
Teach concepts about spring, nature, and environmental conservation in preparation for Earth Day (April 22). Use colorful, nonfiction books to help explain the importance of keeping our earth happy and healthy.
If group activities are possible, plant a seed with the class to reinforce your lessons about plant growth. Alternatively, ask students to discuss the little things they can do to help protect the Earth, such as recycling common items used at home.
Even young children are eager to help the environment - and here is a bright, inviting novelty book that offers simple ways to make a difference.
Drawing on two sides of your paper instead of just one. Walking to the park instead of getting a ride. Turning off the water while you brush your teeth. A young boy and girl explore all the different ways they can be Green over the course of a day.
With his signature blend of playfulness and sensitivity, Todd Parr explores the important, timely subject of environmental protection and conservation in this eco-friendly picture book.
