Kid Territory: Crafts: Build a Bird Nest
What you need
• A plastic berry basket (the green ones with the open holes)
• Clean eggshell pieces
• Glue
• Small paper cup
• Scissors
• Two cotton balls
• Drinking straw
• Tacky glue
• Sticky dots
• Feathers
• Natural materials like grass, leaves, seeds, bark. (Collect the natural items only from the ground.)
What you do
1.
Use the natural leaves, grass, and bark and weave them in
and out of the holes in the berry basket to form the outside
of the nest. Then use more of these materials to line the
inside of the nest, but leave some space in the middle. Which
materials do you choose? How do you arrange them? Which ones
are stronger, which ones are softer? Think about how a bird
would arrange things to make a comfy nest for its chicks.
What kinds of things do you think birds would collect to make
their nests?
2. Cut the top of the cup in jagged edges to look like a broken shell. Poke a hole in the bottom of the cup big enough for the drinking straw to fit through. Then glue eggshell pieces on the cup.
3.
Glue the bottom of the cup to the space in the middle of the
berry basket nest.
4. Use the cotton balls to form a bird chick and glue them together. Add sticky dots for the eyes, fold a small piece of paper for a beak, and use the feathers for the baby bird's wings.
5. Glue the baby bird onto one end of the drinking straw.
6. Stick the other end of the straw into the cup and pull the straw through the hole. Then push it up and down, and you've got a baby bird hatching from its egg!
More
Animal Bytes:
Bird, Sociable Weaver
Animal-themed Crafts: Rock
Owl, Be a Baker for Birds, Make a California Condor
