Birds

During the course of lockdown (2020) we enjoyed lots of long walks around our surrounding areas and made games of how many birds we could spot. Robbie loved this and became very interested in birds, so I decided to do a bird theme for him. Again this could be adapted and added to for older children or more substantial topics, to include things such as conservation, bird watching etc. I have added my planning mind map underneath and describes the activities we did.

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Bird Feeders – resources: string, toilet roll tubes, pipe cleaners, peanut (or alternative) butter, mixed seeds, Cheerios, raisins.

To make our bird feeders we first tied some string through the middle of our toilet roll tubes, then spread them with smooth peanut butter (we tried crunchy, but it didn’t stick to the tubes). After the tubes were covered with the peanut butter we rolled them in mixed seeds and hung them on our fence. Then we used our pipe cleaners to thread on Cheerios and raisins, bent them into nice shapes and hung them up too.

Of course, Robbie got to quality check the seeds, Cheerios and raisins so enjoyed this activity thoroughly.

Toilet Roll bird Tree Craft – resources: toilet roll tubes, plain paper, paint, pens/crayons, scissors, Sellotape.

These are really cute wee crafts. First, we painted the tubes using brown paint, then we used a cotton wool ball and green paint to print the treetops and left them to dry. I drew the outline of two little birds and we coloured these in using crayons and mummy cut them out. Once the tubes and tops were dry mummy cut them out and cut two little slits into the top of the tubes for the treetops to slip into. We then stuck our little birds onto the front of the tubes with Sellotape.

Footprint Birds – resources: plain paper, paint, coloured feathers, google eyes.

We painted Robbie’s feet in different colours and stamped them onto plain paper. Once they had dried we stuck corresponding coloured feathers and googly eyes on using Pritt-stick and drew on beaks and feet with a black pen.

These are really cute and great fun to make. Robbie loves painting his hands and feet so this was a very popular activity.

Hand Print Eagle picture – resources: plain paper, paint, pens, Pritt-stick.

This was a really effective and reasonably straightforward activity. We painted the eagle’s body and tail freehand with brown paint and painted Robbie’s hands with brown paint to stamp on the paper for the wings. I drew the head, beak and feet on another piece of paper and Robbie coloured them in with pens. Mummy cut all the different pieces out and Robbie stuck them all together on another piece of plain paper using Pritt-stick.

Birdy Biscuits – Recipe here

These were great fun little snacks that we adapted to fit into our bird-themed week. I put two small balls of mixture next to each other before baking so that they would stick together then added raisins for the beaks, half Cheerios for the feet and a spot of food colouring for the eyes.

Bird Seed picture – resources: half A4 piece of paper, pens, Pritt-stick, mixed seeds, tray, paintbrush, hair spray.

Robbie had great fun making this picture and eating the seed too. I drew the rough outline of a bird onto half a piece of A4 paper. We then coloured in its feet and beak with pens. We put lots of glue onto the bird’s body and shook seed over it, using a paintbrush to press them down and sweep them into the glue. Mummy then sprayed the whole picture with hair spray to try and keep the seeds from falling off. We did this on a large tray as the seeds did fall off the picture and by using the tray we didn’t make a big mess on the floor.

Paper Plate Birds Nest craft – resources: paper plate, paint, desiccated coconut (or shredded paper), scissors, googly eyes, glue, lolly sticks.

First, we cut a paper plate in half, painted one-half brown, sticking some desiccated coconut onto the bottom part using prey glue and hairspray. Then I drew the outline of the egg and bird head and shoulders and beak onto the other side of the plate and we painted these. Once everything was dry I cut them all out and Robbie stuck the bird and the top of the egg together using Pritt-Stick-stick. I cut a slit in the base paper plate to slide the lolly stick in. Then we stuck the bottom of the egg over the slit and lolly stick but slightly popping out so the lolly stick still had space to move up and down. Finally, we stuck the lolly stick to the back of the bird with Sellotape. This meant that the bird and top of the egg could be moved up and down like the bird was hatching from the egg.

Are You My Mother Story – resources: Are you my mother book/youtube video

During the themed weeks I like to bring out all the storybooks we have that are linked to that topic, so this week we brought out all the books with birds. One of these was an old book that my Grandma had at her house when we were little that she had bought for my dad and uncle to teach them to read. Robbie became really taken with this book and we read it at least 3 times a day. We also found a few videos of it on YouTube which was a nice rest for mummy throat. This story is lovely and innocent and has lots of interesting talking points within it.