Creative Play: All About Birds
Over the past three weeks, I've been teaching Caroline and Charlie all about birds. I expected it to last maybe a week, but they have really gotten into it. Caroline is now asking for a pet bird because "she just loves them so much." I keep a basket of all of our bird learning materials and we head outside. Each activity has lasted anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. They've even come up with some of their own activities. Here they are below with links for the materials that I purchased. The good thing about this is that most of the things can be found in nature, or in your home.
Materials for All Things Birds: All of these materials are not necessary, if you have some paint, paper, and pens, you are good. These extra materials just enhance the activities.
- Kids Binoculars or Adult Ones
- Watercolor Paper
- Watercolor Paint, or Tempera Paint
- Paintbrushes
- Kid Size journals or just construction paper folded to make a book
- Play Dough or Air Dry Clay
- Things from Nature
- Bag Clips
Activities: I will say that the book listed above, Birds, Nests & Eggs is helpful with these activities because you can learn about a different bird a day and use that bird to guide you. Or you could just download the Merlin Bird App and use that as a guide.
Make a nest with sticks- Just what it says, have your child collect as many sticks as they can and help them build a birds nest of any size.
Learn about bird calls using the Merlin Bird App- This app is cool! It includes bird sounds, pictures, descriptions of so many types of birds. You can even upload a picture of a bird you find and it will tell you what it is.
Make a clay or play dough nest- First form the material into a nest shape and then collect things from nature. Moss, small sticks, leaves, flowers, weeds and have them stick it on the play dough or clay.
Nest with cut up magazines - From my favorite, Art Bar Blog.
Drawing birds- This is where the journal comes in. Go on a nature walk, bring their journals and let them draw what birds they see, with a pen! Pens make things so much more exciting for kids.
Bird discovery and journaling- If your child is older, they can write about the birds they find.
Bird watch tally
Bird beaks with tweezers and tongs- Caroline and Charlie had a blast with this one. I gave them each a bag clip and had them pick up easter grass one by one to imitate what it is like for a bird to pick up worms or seeds.
Act out being a bird (Caroline came up with this one)
Painting birds still life with watercolors
Have fun birding! We sure have and I've learned a lot along the way too.
