Spring is my favorite time of year and it lends itself to the bright colors kids love!  I am so excited about these fun spring art ideas for preschoolers and toddlers.  They are simple and fun (and sometimes a bit messy) and will help your kiddos get excited about spring and all the new adventures it has to offer.

Spring is my favorite time of year!  We live in the northern midwest and snow covers the ground for at least four months out of the year.  Something happens to me when the snow starts melting, the sun shines longer, and I can actually feel its warmth on my skin.  I cannot stay inside!

As a homeschooling mama, this is the most challenging time of year for me because I do not want to sit inside and focus on lessons.  I want to be outside preparing for my vegetable garden, cleaning up the flower beds, and welcoming the robins.  We find ourselves hunting for the tips of bulbs popping up out of the ground, exclaiming over each new green leaf, and shedding thick hoodies.

The earth is alive and I want to be a part of it!

I also want my youngsters to experience it as well, which often means splashing in mud puddles, shoving short fingers into the ground looking for wiggly worms, and plucking the first bright dandelions they see and bringing them to me squished in little fists.  Seriously, my heart sings (except maybe for the mud part).

Let’s embrace the season with these spring crafts for preschoolers and toddlers.  I’m sure you will find some great ideas here!

Spring Art Ideas for Preschoolers

While spring crafts for preschoolers could lend themselves to a dozen different exciting topics, I’ve narrowed it down to three so this post doesn’t get too confusing.  

• Flower crafts for kids
• April showers bring May flowers crafts
• Kite crafts

Spring Art Ideas for Preschoolers: Flower Crafts for Kids

Tulips, daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths all herald spring and fortunately tulip shapes are super easy to craft!

Simple and “elegant” this tulip craft is three-dimensional with the flower folded accordion style and a striped or polka dot straw placed through it.  Perfect for preschoolers with even moderate cutting skills and the end result is colorful and fun with little detailed work.  Check out Pretty Paper Straw Tulip Craft by I Heart Crafty Things.

These pipe cleaner flowers are easy to make and so cute that your child will want to make several of them and live them up on a windowsill or use them as a center piece for your table.  All of the materials can be purchased at a dollar store so it is inexpensive as well.  It does require a hot glue gun. Check out these pipe cleaner flowers by The Resourceful Mama.

Have your kids ever made crafts with colored bubbles?  Basically, you blow a mound of bubbles and then place paper on top of it.  When the bubbles pop they make this fun design.  

What kid doesn’t like bubbles and when you add colors, the fun gets even better!  These bubble hyacinths are easy (and a little messy) and will have your kids wanting to make more pretty much every day.  Check out Bubble Paint Flowers Craft by My Joy Filled Life.

Seriously, how cute are these cupcake liner flowers?  They use cupcake liners, scrapbook paper, a colorful button, and a paper straw.  Simple enough for toddlers and preschoolers and the variety of colors and patterns are endless.  Check out Super Easy Cupcake Liner Flowers by Fireflies and Mudpies (don’t you just love that name?)

Here is another cupcake liner craft.  This one layers the cupcake liners and uses glitter in the middle to give it a little extra sparkle.  Another perfect one for toddlers or preschoolers with room for creativity and variation.  Check out these cupcake liner flowers by Laughing Kids Learn.

How about combining science and spring art with your preschooler?  These fun crystal flowers use pipe cleaners and borax (found in the laundry detergent aisle).  They are sparkly and the process will get little brain wheels turning.  Check out these great Borax crystal flowers by Go Science Kids.

April Showers Bring May Flowers Crafts

Do you remember this rhyme?  “April Showers Bring May Flowers”?  We used to finish it with “What do May flowers bring?”  PILGRIMS!  

These spring art ideas for preschoolers are great to have fun with this little rhyme.  Be sure to check out “15 Delightful Spring Poems for Children” with coloring pages for more fun rhymes.

We love fingerprint art!  You go about it exactly how it sounds, you paint with your fingertips rather than a brush. It requires almost no coordination so it is great for toddlers and still provides a great way to be creative for your preschoolers.  Check out April showers bring May flowers fingerprint craft by Kids Activities.

This adorable April showers bring May flowers craft comes from Kix cereal website of all places.  It is intended for you to paint and cut the empty cereal box which is a brilliant upcycle idea.  You could use any thin cardboard or even egg cartons.  There is a lot of room for creativity here and the only assistance needed will probably be cutting the cardboard if it is too thick for small scissors.  For directions go to April showers bring May flowers wreath.

I love this next one.  It uses pom poms!  It is great for glueing practice as well as fine motor and color matching.  She provides a free template.  Older kids could do this without a template to give way for more creativity while it’s great for younger kids.  Check out April showers bring May flowers craft at A Sprinkle of Pink.

No collection of spring art ideas for preschoolers would be complete with these cute April showers bring May flowers crafts, am I right?

You may also like “15 Delightful Spring Poems for Children” with accompanying coloring pages.

Spring Art Ideas for Preschoolers: Kite Crafts

Kite crafts are a fun spring idea because who doesn’t like seeing colorful kites bobbing through the bright blue sky?  While my kids have had some difficulty flying kites (can you say tangled string??) we do enjoy giving it a try every year.  

These cute kite crafts will get your kids in the mood for spring!

Another fun cupcake liner craft by I Heart Crafty Things.  In this craft, the cupcake liners are flattened out and shaped into a kite.  Perfect for small hands with a lovely colorful result.  Check out cupcake liner kite craft for directions.

Who doesn’t love a stained glass activity with tissue paper and contact paper?  This adorable kite craft is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers and they will be so proud to see their kite on the window brightening up the room.  Check out this stained glass kite craft from Grandma Ideas.

This fun kite is one you can actually fly!  I love that it is made from newspaper and is simple enough for little hands.  Check out this newspaper kite by Living Well Spending Less.

You might also like “Fun and Easy Preschool Activities for the Letter K”

Spring Art for Toddlers

Few seasons embrace the bright colors our favorite little people are attracted to better than spring.  If you have an active toddler who is in full on exploration mode, then these spring painting and other spring craft ideas are for you.  They are simple and yet will make your little one feel as if they are creating masterpieces (which of course they are!).

Let’s embrace that hands on willingness to try everything disposition that makes toddlers so much fun and yet so much work. 

Painting with Toddlers

Painting with toddlers can be messy because well, everything at this age is messy!  But it is so worth it.  Painting with toddlers is an amazing learning process.  Not only is it fine motor and color recognition, but its trial and error, exploration, and cause and effect.  It may look like a mangled mess of whatever color their chubby little hands dipped in first, but their brains are creating necessary paths that will lead to reading and writing, playing instruments, and building vocabulary.

A few tips for painting with toddlers:

• Paint outside if the weather permits.  We are all a bit happier when we are not cleaning up the floor ever two minutes.
• Strip them down to their undies (or diapers).  This age loves to paint on everything, including themselves.  
• Cover your work space with an old sheet.  I have found old sheets to be invaluable in the parenting department.  We use them for building forts, eating on the carpet, painting and other crafts, and various other things I never thought I’d use them for back in my single days.
• Use big paper.  Your toddler will paint an entire piece of 8×11 paper in about three seconds.  They will also use way too much paint which brings me to the next point.
• Use cardstock as opposed to printer paper.  It is a little bit more money but it holds up a lot better.

Check out these great crafts for painting with toddlers.

This fun rainbow sponge painting is perfect for spring!  And it adds a fun new object into the mix.  Check it out at Strong Start!

This next one is an awesome idea!  They call it smush painting and all of the mess stays INSIDE a ziploc bag!  I wish I had thought of this myself years ago.  

Kids still get the fun of painting and what toddler doesn’t like squishing dots?  

Happy Toddler Club, you are brilliant.

Watercolors are always a great option for toddlers as they are washable and fairly easy to contain. It also gives great practice learning to hold a writing utensil.

Marble painting is fun for toddlers (as long as they are past the marbles in the mouth stage) and also keeps the mess contained. Put a piece of paper in a dish with sides. Roll a couple of marbles in paint and set them on the paper. Let your child move the dish around so the marbles roll all over the paper.

Hand print crafts for toddlers

Grandmas, aunts, elderly neighbors, and moms all love handprint crafts and those cute toddler hands are the perfect size for a lot of great gift ideas.  

These handprint bookmarks are easy for toddlers to make with little mess and the smile on their faces when they present these flowers will melt the hearts of anyone receiving them.  They are made out of foam so no worry about uncoordinated fingers ribbing colored paper.  Check out this simple handprint flower bookmark by Glued to My Crafts.

These lovely handprint flowers will take a bit of guidance because it is several handprints in a circular shape.  Your toddler will love the finished product and it would make a wonderful Mother’s Day gift.  Check out this handprint flowers canvas by Arts and Crackers.

Ok, so I know this is supposed to be handprint art, but isn’t this robin so stinkin’ cute?!  Robins announce the coming of spring and we are always excitedly watching for them.  Why not make this robin out of your child’s footprint?  Check out this robin and Sweet and Simple Things.

Chicks are always a fun part of spring!  This simple craft uses your child’s hands and toes and is easy to put together.  Check out this cute handprint chick at A Little Pinch of Perfect.

I hope you found some great spring craft ideas for preschoolers and toddlers in this collection!