I was feeling it again.  I was starting to break out in a cold sweat and felt my pulse start to throb in my head as the same old feeling started to take over… there isn’t enough of me to go around.  This time instead of letting it ruin the day or even the moment, I decided to do what I would tell my kids to do and freeze.

When I stopped and really looked at things instead of just reacting in the moment.  I realized that I wasn’t doing a good job of planning activities for the little learner in our house.  My school age kids are older now and are not interested in arts & crafts, but my younger little one is just starting to get into crafts and working with mommy.

I know many of you guys have large age ranges as well.  It is hard to keep everyone learning and happy.  I got lucky. By the way, this post contains affiliate links.  You can read my full disclosure here.

Our little one has been having a little too much TV time and not enough learning, so when I was contacted by the folks at education.com about hosting a guest post I jumped at the chance.  This is a STEAM activity about birds, which are not my favorite so I would NEVER think of this on my own.  Painting is a favorite so she was on board.

Nature Studies

Bird watching is a great nature activity that is especially engaging for the little ones.  Their rapid movement and bright colors make them easy to spot.  This makes a high enjoyment and lower frustration activity.  Sometimes you even get to see baby birds or birds grabbing a few worms for a snack.

This is a craft to go along with your bird study or book study.  Thanks again to education.com for contacting me and sharing this idea.

Birds! Birds! & More Birds!

It’s always exciting when your child spots a bird in your backyard, especially since they come in so many different colors and sizes. Maybe your local birds aren’t as colorful as the ones in more tropical areas, so here’s an activity to brighten things up a bit! This fun craft is perfect to do in the spring and opens up the opportunity to teach your kindergartener about birds. So get ready to make your very own Rockin’ Robin, Chicken Little, or Woody the Woodpecker to hang in your home!

What You Do

1. Place a folded paper bag in front of your child and encourage her to paint both sides with bright colors. Let dry.
2. Unfold the bag and paint its sides and any areas that may have been missed. Let dry
3. Help your child place the open bag over the bottle to help it stand up on its own.
4. Encourage her to glue on any decorative materials she likes such as glitter, beads, feathers, etc.
5. Help her to ball up newspaper until she has two balls that are about the size of a baseball. This will be the stuffing for the bird.
6. Stuff the ball of crumpled paper into the top of the bag to create the bird’s head. Rubber band it into place.
7. Cut long slits about 1 inch in width into the remaining painted paper bag jutting out from the bird’s head to create some feathers. Use a pencil to roll them from the end of the paper up to the rubber band.
8. Fold a piece of construction paper in half. Draw a triangle with the base matching the fold. Keeping the paper folded, cut out two sides of the triangle, keeping the fold attached. You should end up with a diamond shape.
9. Fold the diamond shape in half lengthwise. Unfold it and fold it in half widthwise to create a beak. Glue the beak to the bird’s face.
10. Keeping the construction paper folded, have your child draw a bird wing, then cut it out with scissors to create two identical wings.
11. Glue the wings to the sides of the bird.
12. Finally, have her glue the googly eyes in place to give her bird a little personality.