Raise your hand if you are ready for spring!! Below you will find direct links to a variety of St. Patrick's Day, spring-themed, Easter, and Passover activities such as digital games and book read-alouds pre-sorted by age. Most are free but there are a handful of great paid resources sprinkled in too. Note that any of my blog posts may contain affiliate links.
Looking for additional themed activities? Bookmark this blog post that I compiled with the fabulous Lucy Stone of The Speech Express (@the_speech_express): The Ultimate List of Themed Speech & Language Activities.
St. Patrick's Day Activities
Book Read-alouds:
Pete the Cat The Great Leprechaun Chase book read-aloud on YouTube
Green Shamrocks book read-aloud on YouTube - good for sequencing steps to grow a plant, retelling the story in sequence, answering wh qs
How to Catch a Leprechaun book read-aloud on YouTube - includes rhyming and facial expressions that are good for teaching emotions/inferencing
The Gingerbread Man and the Leprechaun Loose at School book read-aloud on YouTube - loaded with tier two vocabulary and inferencing opportunities
The Story of the Leprechaun - ideal for older elementary, includes tier two vocab, great for story retell and answering comprehension questions, discussing character traits
Daniel's Strange Dream - free Boom card story by Teacher Camille. Great for recalling details read aloud, retelling the story, and clipart for creating a scene at the end (clipart can be used to work on direction-following, prepositions, etc.)
Digital Games:
Race to the Pot of Gold - free open-ended Boom Card board game by Taco Bout It Speech Fun
Flashlight iSpy - free Boom Card game by Culturally Speaking SLPs
St. Patrick's Day Crossword Puzzle on ABCya
Lucky Lane Language Game - free Boom Card board game by Sparkle Speechie - includes categories, functions, attributes, idioms, synonyms/antonyms and more!
St. Patrick's Day Bingo Game by SpiffySpeech
Interactive Leprechaun Game on TpT by Mrs Peters Speech - open-ended and includes sound effects
St. Patrick's Day Pronouns - free Boom card game by My Speechly
Activities for Older Students:
What Percent Leprechaun Are You? Personality Quiz
Can You Catch the Leprechaun Virtual Escape Room by Gwinnett County Public Library - includes a storyline with tier two vocab and math word problems
St. Patrick's Day Jokes for Kids by Country Living - good for explaining the joke by defining multiple meaning or sound-alike words
30 Funny St. Patrick's Day Jokes and Comics by Scout Life - includes funny cartoons, student can describe them, use for sentence formulation, or explain the joke
St. Patrick's Day MadLibs - includes multiple themed MadLibs! Print for use in-person or ask student(s) to provide the words before you pull up the story on screen, use Annotate to fill in their answers, and read aloud
Virtual Field Trip to Ireland TpT resource by Michelle McDonald - $4.00, no print, and looks amazing!! Includes text for reading comprehension, map concepts, is loaded with photos and Google Earth tours
St. Patrick's Day Jeopardy on Jeopardy Labs - trivia questions
St. Patrick's Day question game on Baamboozle - game has trivia questions but each includes a funny animated gif that can also be used to work on describing or sentence formulation
Spring Activities for Younger Students
Book Read-alouds:
Spring is Here book read-aloud on YouTube - short and ideal for preschoolers
I Am Spring book read-aloud on YouTube - more like nonfiction, includes basic facts about spring changes and loaded with vocabulary, great for the introducing the start of the season!
Badger's Perfect Garden book read-aloud on YouTube
Heads and Tails Insects book read-aloud on YouTube - great for naming bugs from a description
The Bugliest Bug book read-aloud on YouTube - loaded with tier two vocab!
It's Not Easy Being a Bunny book read-aloud on YouTube
Too Many Carrots book read-aloud on YouTube
Creepy Carrots book read-aloud on YouTube - includes tier two vocab, also check out this animated version!
Digital Games:
Ready, Set, Grow with Abby & Elmo Game on PBS Kids - includes steps in sequence to plant a garden, great for requesting, describing, spring vocab
Curious George Bug Catcher Game on PBS Kids - very basic and could be used as a reinforcer, includes attributes (colors, spots) and the concepts more/less
Curious George Flower Garden Game on PBS Kids - another very basic game, involves counting flowers but could be used for positions in a line and attributes
Arthur's Park Game on PBS Kids - includes mini games in sequence like a board game with dice, park cleanup, giving a speech about the park (choosing words to complete each sentence)
Pinkalicious Musical Garden Game on PBS Kids - includes basic feelings and can be paired with Zones of Regulation or played while talking about feelings
8 Bug Games on Pest World for Kids- includes games for younger and older students, best for preschool and early elementary include: Bug Builder (choose parts to create a bug) which is great for language, Sort the Bugs which can be used as a quick reinforcer or break for younger kids, and Archibald's Adventure-- an easy side-scroller game using arrows (students can direct you where to go) that includes spring vocabulary
Spring Search PowerPoint game by Spiffy Speech - take turns hiding/finding spring-themed items
Super Speech Spring Cleaning Boom card game by Speechable Moments - includes language activities like naming from a description, making predictions
Plant Monster PowerPoint game by Spiffy Speech - includes animations and sound effects and has a built-in spinner! Choose and customize characters with accessories, catch bugs in characters' nets, game is loaded with language activities such as describing and comparing visuals
Other Activities:
Preschool Dances by Dance N Beats - there are several spring-themed video dances including Can You Plant a Bean, Drip Drop Rain, Bugs and Crawly Things, Stuck in the Muck, Butterfly Wings, and Little Butterfly
The Children's Tree wordless animated video on YouTube - great for answering "wh" qs, describing or narrating, making inferences and predictions
Simon's Cat Videos Garden Collection - wordless cartoon on YouTube - great for answering "wh" qs, describing or narrating, making inferences or predictions
SPRING for KIDS! - video with narration on YouTube that includes facts about changes in spring, great for answering recall/comprehension questions like, "Which animals hibernate?"
Spring Activities for Older Students
8 Bug Games on Pest World for Kids- some can be used as a reinforcer or break, older students might like Pest Detective (involves inferencing, describing, reading comprehension), Pet Rangers, or bug trivia quizzes
Spring Words Describing/Naming Game by Spiffy Speech - similar to Taboo but played using spring-themed words, pull up on-screen and have students practice describing a word without saying the forbidden words. During groups, you can send the target word and forbidden words in the chat so student can describe
the secret word to peers
Spring Language Cards for Teletherapy by The Speech Express - each card includes a photo and addresses a variety of higher level language concepts, including goals in language processing, syntax, and expressive language
32 Spring Jokes and Puns on Fatherly - great for explaining humor using multiple meanings and sound-alike words
Spring Jeopardy on Jeopardy Labs - includes multiple meanings words and idioms
Spring Jeopardy on Jeopardy Labs - this game includes trivia-type questions related to spring
Escape Your Boring (Spring) Break Escape Room by Pekin Public Library - puzzles are challenging but includes lots of storyline text between puzzles so it's great for targeting reading comprehension!
Mystery Doug: Why Do We Celebrate April Fool’s Day? on YouTube - learn about the outcome of past pranks, from teachers to media outlets and more
BBC Earth: Clever Queen Bumblebees - find out how bees warm up after hibernating all winter long!
Spring Themed Short Videos:
Thank you to Lucy at The Speech Express for sharing these videos on Instagram!
Spring on YouTube - a wordless video for older students that presents an interesting story of how spring came to be, great for fantasy lovers!
Sweet Cocoon on YouTube - two insects decide to help a struggling caterpillar into its cocoon, *ending may be a little disturbing to younger students so preview it before showing
For The Birds on YouTube - a snooty flock of birds don’t want to share their roosting spot
Peck Pocketed - a bird wants to upgrade his nest by stealing from a napping woman
Simon’s Cat: Spring videos on YouTube - there are several spring themed videos including Springtime, Spring is Here, Spring Season, and April Showers
Story of Flowers on YouTube - a stunningly detailed animated short about the life cycle of flowers
Easter and Passover Activities
Book Read-alouds:
Pete the Cat Big Easter Adventure - book read-aloud on YouTube
Clifford's Happy Easter - book read-aloud on YouTube
The Great Eggscape book read-aloud on YouTube
Turkey's Eggcellent Easter book read-aloud on YouTube - great for "wh" questions, critical-thinking questions such as inferences, comparing/contrasting, tier two vocab
Sarah's Passover book read-aloud on YouTube
The Best Four Questions Passover book read-aloud on YouTube
Digital Games:
Make an Easter Egg game on ABCya - great for requesting and describing using adjectives/attributes, after decorating eggs you can choose a prize to place inside and hide/find and open the eggs!
Easter Crossword Puzzle on ABCya
Egg Hunt PowerPoint game by Spiffy Speech - take turns hiding/finding eggs and other items within two scenes (outside and inside the house)
Bunny Hop Open-Ended Easter Board Game by The Speech Place - freebie on Boom Learning
Activities for Older Students:
What is Passover (Pesach)? article by Chabad - use for reading comprehension, finding answers/evidence in the text
Learn How Your Passover Matzo Gets Made by Gothamist - includes an article loaded with tier two vocab and great for reading comprehension as well as a video showing each step in the process (text only, no audio)
Easter MadLibs - to use digitally, refrain from sharing screen and have the student tell (or chat) you each part of speech. Finally, pull MadLib up on-screen and fill in using Annotate
Easter Escape Room (ELA) on TpT by The Collaborative Class - paid resource but includes parts of speech, text structure, reading comprehension, multi-part questions, text evidence, figurative language, inferencing, context clues/vocab
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Happy Spring!!!