Hungry Baby Birds

This week our main focus has been birds and their families. It tied in great with both Brown Bear, Brown Bear as well as the topic of family. We discussed how baby birds are dependent on their parents for food, and shelter much like they rely on us for the same thing and how the Lord has given us (as parents) the job  to protect them and care for them. They have been especially fascinated with how both parent birds feed their babies. I found THIS book at the library and it was a perfect fit. I decided I wanted a craft that would replicate a baby bird with an open beak.

Here's what you need

• toilet paper roll
• googly eyes
• two orange construction paper triangles (beak)
• two diamond shaped construction paper cutouts in whatever color you chose (in our case it was red)
• paint (for bird body)
• glue

1. first color your whole roll whatever color you would like your bird to be (allow to dry)

2. glue your triangles on the top portion of the roll (this should look like an opened beak

3. glue wings on side of roll and fold to look like they are flapped open

4. glue eyes on side under one of the beak triangles (allow to dry)

The idea is for it to look like a baby bird with  its head back and mouth opened. 

The next day for snack I pulled these little birds out and told them we needed to feed the baby birds too. I was inspired by My Nearest and Dearest' "eat like a bird" exercise.

What you need. 

• small snack (nuts, dried fruit,) something they can pinch. 
• baby bird (from craft above) 
• a plate to catch food underneath
• tweezers or tongs

I had the boys pick up one berry at a time using the tongs and "feed" the baby. Wolf had a hard time with the tongs so we opted for him to use his hands. The tongs we used were a little big but Bear seemed to get the hang of it. We also tried using a pair of fine point tweezers. If I had to do this again I would have wished we had kid plastic tweezers. But it worked with what we had on hand. 

After filling  the baby birds belly we lifted up the bird and enjoyed the snack ourselves. Now the boys can't stop talking about the babies being hungry again. Looks like we may have to give this another go soon.