Chirp Chirp: Bird watch!

Summer is a great time to explore the many different kinds of animals in our environment.  The past few weeks we've talked about ocean animals, bugs and farm animals.  This week we thought we'd talk about birds!

We started by reading this funny book.  It's all about a bird who has a bad day, but runs into lots of other animal friends that cheer him up.  This book is great because it helped us as we compared animals.  Help your child classify animals by asking them simple questions like: Do birds have fur or feathers? (see if they can think of any other animal with feathers) Do birds fly or swim?  What do birds eat?  What sounds to birds make?  This will help your child understand the different types of animals and perhaps the similarities and differences. 

We then talked about the different kinds of animals that have feathers; ducks, swans, peacocks, flamingos, chickens and had fun making the sounds of all those birds!

Then we made this fun craft! It's super easy, quick and lots of fun!

Materials:

-Empty toilet paper rolls

-Peanut butter

-Bird seed

-String

Coat the toilet paper roll with peanut butter and roll in birdseed.  Tie a string through so you can hang it on a tree limb.

After we made these fun bird feeders, we went outside to hang them up.  We also had the kids look for birds, luckily there were tons of birds outside to see!  We talked about size difference, which sounds went to which birds and colors.  The birds were even nice enough to leave us some feathers on the ground!   The kids loved this activity and had a lot of fun looking in trees for nests.

While everyone ate their bird shaped rice crispy snacks, we read this fun book.  If you haven't read this book, you need to!  This personality packed pigeon is so smart.  The kids really had fun with it and really liked the ending.