It’s spring in the northern hemisphere! Snow is melting, grass is starting to turn green and the summer birds are returning. Here are some springtime/bird activities for you to do with your kids. Have fun.
You can find more Spring/bird activities as well as lots of other activities to do with your child in the eBook “Healthy Kid Play” available for purchase at healthykidplay.com.
First, here are some questions to ask your child to lead into the activities:
- What are we talking about when we talk about spring? (Winter’s over, snow melts, flowers start to grow and bloom, leaves begin to grow on the trees, etc.)
- When is the first day of spring? (in March in northern hemisphere, usually Mar. 21 or 22)
- What did some of the birds do for winter? (They flew away to where it is warm, they migrated).
- What do those birds do when spring arrives? (The birds that migrated come back. Birds begin to build nests and then lay their eggs in the nests.)
Baby birds in a Nest – Art Activity
Materials:
- Brown paper
- Yellow or Orange paper
- Scissors, Stapler
- Paper egg carton
- Shredded wheat cereal
- Paint and brush
- White glue
- Googly eyes or white paper and black marker
- Draw and cut out an oval or round shape from the brown paper. Spread thickly with white glue. Sprinkle the crushed shredded wheat cereal onto the glue. Cover it well. This makes the baby birds nest.
2. Cut egg cups from the paper egg carton, leaving some of the edges to give you something to fasten the egg cups to the “nest” later. Let your child choose a colour to paint the baby birds. Let me suggest you let them choose any colour, it doesn’t have to be a “natural” colour. Paint the eggs cups and let dry.
3. Cut small triangles from the yellow or orange paper to be the bird beaks. Cut small white circles and draw black dots on them for eyes, or use googly eyes. Glue the eyes and beak onto the baby birds.
4. Staple the birds onto the nests using the edge pieces if possible. If you don’t have enough to catch in the stapler, you can use the white glue, but you might need to clean away some of the cereal to be able to get the egg cup to stick to the brown paper.
Matching Birds and Nests – Math & Language Activity
Materials: felt or paper to activity shapes: 1 set includes mother bird, baby bird, egg shell, and nest . Make 5 – 10 sets of the shapes for this, each set must be a different color.
Preparation: Make the sets ahead of time or have your child help you cut these out.
1. Let your child count the shapes (number of each shape; ie mother birds; number of all birds, other shape combinations)
2. Let your child match the items that are the same color – ie. blue birds, blue nests, blue egg shells
3. Suggest other color combinations (i.e. Brown mother, blue baby, yellow nest, green egg shells) and let your child put those items together. Click on this link to find the full size template for this activity (like the image here) or draw your own.
Little Baby Robin Eggs – Physical Activity
Materials: adult size white or pale blue t-shirt
1. Tell your child that they are going to pretend to be a baby robin hatching from its egg.
2. Put the t-shirt on your child and have him/her crouch down and tuck their body inside the shirt – the head just inside the head hole, arms tucked in with hands just inside the arm holes, and knees bent toward the stomach so child is close to the ground so the entire body is encased inside the shirt.
3. Coach your child on how to hatch: they should slowly poke out their head, then their arms, then their legs. Then they can stand up.
4. Once “hatched” they can fly around the room and back to their “nest” to do the activity again if they wish.
