20 minimalist & fun spring activities
Here are twenty affordable and fun activities you can do as the weather warms without breaking the bank.
1. Visit your local farmer’s market
Farmer’s markets can be a ton of fun on your own or with the whole family. Stock up on delicious seasonal produce while you support your local farmers. Or, spend nothing and just have a fun morning browsing the stalls and getting to know your neighbors.
2. Watch a sports game
If you’re a bit of a professional sports hater (same), hear me out. There are fun ones, even for those of us who are sick of hearing about football and baseball.
I LOVE roller derby. It’s such a fun sport, you don’t have to be out in the sun and rain and wind because the matches are usually inside. I love a good nacho cheese pretzel. The players and fans are generally very kind and welcoming. And it’s an engaging game to watch.
Another thing I find fun is watching kids’ games. You don’t have to have a kid participating. Or a kid at all. You can bring your friends and pick kids to bet on. Or whatever. You can even tailgate! (If you’re a party animal, don’t get crazy at the kids’ games, please. Read the room and act in a child-appropriate way.) Another fun activity is attending high school plays or community theater performances. It’s an underrated way to spend an evening! Plus your ticket money goes to supporting the arts. Win-win.
3. Paint rocks and leave them around town
My small town went on a painted rocks CRAZE a few years back, with seemingly the whole community on board with painting rocks, hiding them around places, finding ones others had hidden. They even made a Facebook group to show off the rocks they’d found. It was fun! I still have one I found on an egg carton in the grocery store. Someone painted it with a tiny fairy castle in a wildflower field. 🥲
So go make someone’s day a little magic! Have fun finding the rocks, a creative afternoon of painting them, then a little easter egg game of hiding them around town for some lucky bystander to happen upon. This could easily turn into several days worth of fun. For free!
4. Make a bird feeder
I love yard projects that make my space more inviting and supportive for wildlife. One easy way to do it is by making a DIY bird feeder or house.
If you don’t want to go full woodworking here, you don’t have to–gather some pinecones, roll them in peanut butter, then dip them in seeds for easy bird feeders to hang from the trees.
Don’t be too disappointed if the squirrels also take part in the bounty, because there’s nothing we can do to stop ’em…
5. Do a nature scavenger hunt
There are lots of ways to do nature scavenger hunts. One of my favorites is a color hunt–find each color of the rainbow! You can snap a picture of it, make a collection box, or just keep track of them in your head. It’s a fun way to spend time outdoors and get your steps in without feeling pressure to spend money.
6. Do an earth day project
Springtime gets me thinking about the planet and what simple things we can do to make it just a little better. Here are a few earth day project ideas:
- Collect trash around your neighborhood and repurpose it into art (or throw it away, I guess, but art sounds more fun…)
- Install a rain bucket
- Start composting
- Spread wildflowers seeds
- Plant a tree
- Add some hiding spots and water sources to your yard for little critters
- Make bird feeders
- Insulate your house to cut down on heating and cooling energy
7. Check out the library
Wanna get out of the house on a rainy day? The library is always there, usually with a fun activity! Check your local library’s schedule for crafting, performances, and other fun events to bring the whole family to.
Or go on a “shopping spree” and pick out some new books, movies, and video games to try.
8. Break out the sidewalk chalk
When’s the last time you played with chalk? If you don’t have young children, it’s probably been a while. Well, I’m here to remind you that it’s FUN.
I love to draw a hopscotch board on the sidewalk in front of my house to watch passerbys hop through it all day.
9. Pick up a new hobby
New season, new hobby! Here are some quick ideas:
- Biking
- Bird watching
- Yoga
- Gardening
- Flower arranging
- Rock painting 😉
- Kite making/flying
- Hiking
- Camping
- Paddle-boarding
- Painting
And here’s a list of 25 Minimalist Hobbies you can check out!
10. Make springtime decor with natural materials
I love to make DIY decor for every season. It’s fun to get outside and collect the materials, to get creative and invent something, and then to decorate your home with something new! It’s a great activity to do with kids or by yourself.
11. Plant wildflowers
If you have yard space and you’re interested in using it to support the environment, then planting native wildflowers is a fantastic way to do that!
(Monoculture lawns have their pros and cons, but they’re not nearly as pretty as wildflowers.)
You can even plant to feed specific types of insects and wildlife, like these mixed seeds for monarch butterflies. Be sure to check your seeds are locally appropriate and native to your area! You definitely don’t want to introduce something harmful or invasive. Just happy spring flowers for the happy little butterflies.
12. Sign up to volunteer with an animal shelter
Springtime is kitten season. Your local animal shelters are PACKED with baby cats and easter-reject bunnies, chickens, and ducks, and tons of other needy baby animals.
If you’re an animal-lover, consider volunteering your time at a shelter. You can take dogs for walks, help to acclimate animals to people so they’re more adoptable, or even open your home to fosters. It’s worthwhile, enriching, and always needed.
If you want something more engaging, you can bottle-feed babies until they’re old enough to adopt, or house an adult animal recovering from surgery. If you don’t have a lot of time or energy to spare, you can take a low-maintenance elderly animal (right now I have an old man cat) so they can have a quiet, comfy place to decompress instead of taking up space in the shelter. You can even volunteer to keep rats and other caged mammals on pregnancy watch.
Fostering is a great way to help out because it’s so customizable! You can take one animal, several, take a break for a few months, and even choose the kind of cases you’d like to take on.
13. Take up painting
The weather is lovely right now—the perfect time to sit outside with some water colors or a sketchbook and express your creativity. As the flowers begin to bloom and the animals emerge to show off their babies, there’s inspiration all around!
14. Go camping
It’s so wonderful to spend time in nature, especially after a long winter cooped up inside. Fishing, bird watching, swimming, and the perfect excuse to skip rocks are waiting for you!
15. Declutter or deep clean your house
Spring is a classic time to open all the windows and scrub your house till it shines.
But if your house is too overwhelming and cluttered, you might not enjoy spring cleaning at all! (But if you do, check out our comprehensive spring cleaning checklist.) If that’s the case, try a declutter. And if you’re not sure where to start, I’ve got you. Check the bottom of this post for your free checklist of 100 easy-declutter items, or this list of five things to declutter in spring.
16. Host a cookout or potluck
If you love to barbecue, pull out the grill and invite some pals over! Or dig a fire pit and roast some marshmallows. Get outside and break bread with the homies.
17. Go on a picnic
Pack up a basket of treats and grab a friend to head over to your local park and enjoy a meal in the mild spring weather.
18. Join a rec sports league
The spring season brings out tons of rec sports leaguers, and you could be one of them! Softball, soccer, kickball–even jump rope leagues are ready to welcome you. Go play and make some friends! It’s fun, affordable, and a fantastic opportunity to get in some movement and meet new people.
19. Bike to a new part of town
No matter how small your town, there’s probably some unexplored areas waiting for you. Take the necessary safety precautions and go exploring! You might bring a friend along, too.
20. Bring a book to the park
“Read a book and enjoy the weather,” I insist, every season. But it’s true! Reading is a rich activity that costs us so little, and it’s a nice excuse to sit still and enjoy whatever season we’re experiencing, in our life and outside.
If you hate reading (crazy), bring a journal and write your own book, or take a sketchpad and draw something you see. Simply exist in the outside world while doing your own thing. It’s energizing, inspiring, and you’ll feel so much better after you’ve done it. Get outside!
Clear out for a fresh start this spring
Don’t forget to grab your free list of 100 items to declutter:
