Tot School - Birds

It's bird week! We don't live somewhere that is home to too many interesting birds, but luckily we have quite a few trees in the backyard and a fountain that helped us coax some birds to aid us in our indoor birdwatching. On Tuesday, we read Duck and Goose and then did an art project.


I gave K and E a picture of a duck to color that I got from a Mailbox magazine that I had. We cut out some grass from green construction paper to glue onto the blue construction paper ponds. After the pond grass was in place, they glued their ducks onto the water. I gave them some butterfly and lady bug stickers to finish up their pictures. K did the project on her own, but I helped E by doing the cutting and eventually helping him with the glue. (I haven't yet built up the courage to let him try scissors.) He placed everything on the paper though, and was very proud of his duck!

On Thursday, we read a few more bird books... Fancy Nancy Explorer Extraordinaire (K was a big fan of this one), The Best Nest, and Goodnight Owl.  Then I had planned to make our own bird feeders.  The kids were so excited, but nothing went right.  We have pine trees in the backyard and the last time I was paying attention there were plenty of pine cones.  Well, not anymore.  There were a few, but they were really high up.  We could see buds for a ton of new pine cones, so we at least talked about that.  Then I realized that I didn't even have birdseed, which is sort of essential to making bird feeders.  The bird feeders became Fridays project, and then it became Saturdays project.  So this morning we bought birdseed, and finally made our bird feeders.  I got this idea from Themes to Grow On.  We attached pipe cleaners to the tops of pine cones so that we could hang them from the tree.  Then we mixed peanut butter with bird seed and used craft sticks to cover the pine cones.  Very easy and both kids were able to do it pretty much by themselves.  Sadly, it is really hot today so we haven't had any birds come by yet.  Hopefully soon!