Nature Activity: Welcome Spring with baby birds

     Spring has FINALLY arrived!  This is my favorite time of the year.  I love to watch the green start to push threw all of the brown and when the flowers start to bloom my heart flutters like those butterflys we are going to see flying by.  But I think that my number one favorite part of spring is all of the baby animals!  I love to watch my backyard birds pair off and raise a family together.  Although it is easier for me to sit and watch the birds than it is for my little girl.  So the question of the day is:

How do we encourage an interest in birds?

I am pretty excited about this lesson plan because it is so easy to do.  As regular readers know, I love my books so I have picked a few as a prelude for this activity.

I bet some of you read this book in your childhood.  Its a little old school but still pretty fun.  This book got the Chloe seal of approval, I think we read it 5 times in one day!  I really like this book because they fit examples of what some birds use in their nests seamlessly into the story.

This small children's field guide contains wonderful full colored pictures.  Your child may have no interest in the facts it provides, but they will love being able to find the name of the birds.  Chloe will ask me questions about the birds we see and this book offers child friendly facts!

This was my favorite book out of all of the books that we read.  It shows a lot of different birds with a lot of different nests.  Along with a nice rhyming story there are some facts about the birds and their nests in small text that are really very interesting. 

This books age range is a bit wider than the previous.  There is only about a sentence per page so it can hold our younger listeners attention.  This book has some colors, numbers, and lots of imagination.

Nest Collector 

So the activity today is super easy and lots of fun.  You can jump in and explore with your child or set back and see what they come up with.  You don't need to have any materials because well finding them in nature is the fun part.

Today we are going to make a bird nest supermarket.  Try to look around and see what birds are in your area.  What do they use to make their nests?  Send your child out to collect a bunch of different nest making materials.  Find a sheltered place to put them so that the birds can safely rummage threw your stock.  If possible have it in a place where your child can observe.  Go back everyday and see what the birds have taken, if you feel the urge you can re stock your store.  (I am sure there are some business lessons in here).

If your child has a nature journal this can be a prime time to use it.  Chloe sat by her supermarket and a bird flew down several times to take something from the pile to his nest.  She was so excited that he came so close and that her market was working.

Let me know how it goes and if you have any more good books for me to read or a lesson plan for me to try!

Until next time on a Natural Parents Toolbox