March Kids Activities: How To Celebrate Spring with Kids?

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March feels like a turning point month with kids. After the long indoor slog of January and February, something shifts in March. The days are longer, the air smells different, and children who have been cooped up inside for months suddenly want to be outdoors at every opportunity. There’s also a lot happening in March: World Book Day, St Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day in the UK, and the spring equinox, which gives the month a nice rhythm to plan around. Here’s what I’m trying this month.

Why March Feels Like a Fresh Start

There’s a genuine energy shift in March that both kids and parents tend to feel. The winter heaviness starts to lift. Light is returning at a noticeable pace, adding a few extra minutes every day. And that change in light does something real to everyone’s mood, children included.

For families, March brings a loosening up of the routines that have kept things going through winter. You can start doing things outside again without it being a major expedition involving seventeen layers and a lot of negotiation. Playgrounds become appealing again. Parks are worth visiting. Bikes and scooters that haven’t moved since October are suddenly fascinating again.

March is also the month when the gap between what kids want to do and what the weather allows narrows. That gap was very wide in January. In March, it’s much smaller, and by the end of the month, it can feel like almost anything is possible again.

There’s a real opportunity in March to reset habits and routines that got sluggish over winter. More outdoor time, more active play, more social connection. The Child Mind Institute has a great piece on the benefits of outdoor play for children that’s worth reading as a reminder of why getting outside matters so much.

World Book Day — Making it Fun Beyond the Costume

World Book Day falls on the first Thursday of March in the UK and Ireland, and it’s one of those school events that can either feel stressful or genuinely enjoyable depending on how you approach it. The costume pressure is real, but the actual point of the day, celebrating reading and books, is lovely.

If you’re doing a costume, simple and homemade is almost always better than elaborate and bought. A character from a book your child actually loves means something. A generic superhero costume with a book tucked under the arm means less, even if it’s easier on a Wednesday evening.

Beyond the costume, there are some genuinely nice ways to mark World Book Day as a family. Visiting a bookshop together and letting your child choose something new is a lovely tradition. Rereading a favourite book from when they were younger brings lovely conversation about how much they’ve changed. And making up a story together, taking turns, adding to it, is free, fun, and surprisingly memorable.

World Book Day tokens are valid in most UK bookshops and can be used to get a free book from a specific selection. The World Book Day website has ideas, resources, and a list of participating books for this year. For US readers, Children’s Book Week is a similar celebration held in May.

Getting Outside Properly in March

March is the month to properly restart outdoor play after winter, and I think it’s worth being intentional about it. Kids who’ve been inside a lot over winter sometimes need a bit of encouragement to rediscover outdoor play. It doesn’t always happen automatically.

The classic outdoor options are all suddenly viable again this month. Trips to the park, riding bikes and scooters, playing in the garden, kicking a football around, all of these are back on the table in March in a way they weren’t really in January.

Nature provides some brilliant March-specific things to look for outdoors. Daffodils and crocuses are everywhere this month. Frogs are spawning in ponds and ditches. Blossom is beginning on some trees. Encouraging kids to notice these things gives outdoor time a sense of discovery rather than just exercise.

A simple nature bingo card is a wonderful March activity. Write down ten or fifteen things to spot — a daffodil, a butterfly, a bird carrying nesting material, blossom on a tree and take it on a walk. Kids who might otherwise moan about walking are often completely engaged when there’s a list to work through.

The Wildlife Trust’s March nature activities have brilliant ideas for what to look for in nature this month. For US readers, the Nature Conservancy’s kids section has similarly good seasonal outdoor content.

St Patrick’s Day Activities

St Patrick’s Day on the 17th of March is one of those occasions that’s brilliant for kids’ activities, whether or not you have Irish heritage. The green colour theme, the leprechaun folklore, and the general festive feel make it a fun day to mark with something creative.

Making a leprechaun trap is a classic activity that children absolutely love. The idea is simple: build a small contraption designed to catch a leprechaun, using cardboard boxes, sticks, string, and whatever craft supplies you have. Leave it out the night before, and in the morning, leave some green glitter and a small note explaining how the leprechaun escaped. Kids find this completely magical.

Green-themed baking is another easy St Patrick’s Day win. Green-frosted cupcakes, rainbow biscuits, or even just adding green food colouring to pancakes make breakfast feel special. Older kids enjoy making rainbow fruit skewers with a little pot of gold (chocolate coins) at the end.

For a more cultural take, listening to some traditional Irish music together, looking at pictures of Ireland, or reading a book about Irish legends adds real context to the fun. The Irish Central resource page has some lovely ideas that go beyond just wearing green.

Mother’s Day Crafts and Activities – UK March

In the UK, Mother’s Day falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent, which means it lands in March most years. It’s a lovely occasion to involve kids in making something personal and heartfelt.

Homemade gifts are almost always more meaningful than bought ones for Mother’s Day, and kids of all ages can make something genuinely lovely with a bit of guidance. Handprint cards and artwork work beautifully for young children. Older kids might make a coupon book of promises, a photo collage, a decorated plant pot with a small plant inside, or a hand-decorated mug.

Cooking or baking as a gift is another lovely approach. Kids making breakfast in bed with some parental supervision and realistic expectations about the mess creates a memory that lasts longer than any bought gift. A homemade cake decorated by the children is equally meaningful.

If you’re looking for craft inspiration, Netmums has a good collection of Mother’s Day craft ideas for different ages. For US readers, American Mother’s Day falls in May, so this is a good moment to start gathering ideas for then.

Spring Equinox and Science Activities

The spring equinox falls around the 20th of March and is a genuinely interesting thing to mark with kids. It’s the moment when day and night are roughly equal in length, after which days become longer than nights. Kids who’ve been told all winter that the days will get longer can now actually see and measure it happening.

A simple equinox experiment is to mark sunrise and sunset times on a chart through March. Even just doing it for the last week of the month makes the change in daylight hours visible and tangible for children. The Time and Date website has clear information about the equinox that’s easy to explain to kids.

Spring science at home is wonderful in March as well. Growing cress or bean seeds on a damp paper towel or cotton wool is a quick and satisfying experiment because results appear within days. Building a simple bird feeder from a plastic bottle and hanging it in the garden introduces wildlife observation alongside making skills.

Egg drop experiments, paper bridge building, and simple catapult building are all classic science challenges that work brilliantly as March activities for older children. These need almost no specialist equipment and generate real excitement and problem-solving.

Science Sparks is a brilliant UK-based website with hundreds of simple science experiments for children of different ages. For US readers, Science Buddies is an equally excellent resource.

Easter Preparation Activities

Easter falls in late March or April, depending on the year, and March is often when families start thinking about Easter activities and traditions. Getting involved in some of the preparation is lovely for kids and extends the Easter excitement well beyond the egg hunt itself.

Decorating blown eggs is a beautiful March tradition that produces results you can keep year after year. The Hobbycraft guide to blowing and decorating eggs walks through the process clearly. It requires a bit of patienc,e but the results are genuinely lovely.

Growing your own Easter garden is another wonderful project. A shallow tray filled with compost, planted with grass seed and small spring bulbs, can be a beautiful centrepiece by Easter if started in early to mid-March. Kids love watching it develop over the weeks.

Homemade Easter cards, egg decorating with paint or natural dyes, and baking hot cross buns are all lovely March Easter activities. The BBC Good Food hot cross buns recipe is reliable and manageable with children’s help.

My March Kids Activity Checklist

March has more going on than almost any other month, which is part of what makes it so enjoyable with kids. Here’s my loose plan for getting the most out of it.

Mark World Book Day with a visit to a bookshop or a family storytelling session. Get outside every day the weather allows and look for signs of spring. Make a leprechaun trap for St Patrick’s Day. Plan a homemade Mother’s Day gift if you’re in the UK. Track the equinox sunrise and sunset times with your children. Try at least one spring science experiment at home. Start an Easter decoration project in the second half of the month. And notice the shift in energy that comes with March because it’s real and it’s worth enjoying.

For more activity ideas and inspiration, Kidspot and Parents.com are both worth bookmarking for this month and beyond.

What are your favourite March activities with kids? I’d love to know if anyone has a brilliant St Patrick’s Day tradition or a World Book Day costume hack they swear by. March feels like such an opportunity after the long winter stretch.