Lots Of Birds And A Nest

Finally the birds are singing and Spring will be here soon.  It was an appropriate day to create a project involving birds! Here is one of Cassie's finished pictures. Very cute!

To begin, you'll need some brown paint and some cardboard pieces for the branches. Corrugated box cardboard works nice for thicker branches.

Use the side of the cardboard dipped in brown paint to create the branches of the tree.

We used a potato cut in half and in half again (half circle) to print the birds body. We used red paint on a lid to print in. You could use blue too or any color you desire!

Cassie really enjoyed the potato printing part! She made a lot of birds!  I had to tell her to stop after a while!

Then we simply used our finger to create the heads of the birds.

Next, using the end of a small piece of cardboard, we twisted it to create a triangle bird tail.

Cassie did very well with creating the tails!!!

After the tails, we added the eyes, beaks, and feet with a small paintbrush.  Lots of work!!!  Almost too tired to finish!!!! Especially with all these birds!!!

Lastly,  we added a nest!!! We used pine needles that Cassie loves to collect, leaves, craft feathers, and some twine. I told her that many of the materials we used are also what birds use to make their nests---along with mud too! (We used glue instead!) You could also use raffia, straw, grasses, or anything that you can find! Make a nature hunt out of it!!! It seems that Cassie is always on a nature hunt and has some collection stored away (rocks, pine cones, leaves, seed pods) so it wasn't difficult to find inspiration!

We put a bunch of glue and arranged the materials to create the nest!  All the birds are coming out of the nest.  Ready to fly! Fabulous!

Now, if you want your picture to go along with this book: Bluebird's Nest by: Dorthea DePrisco, then make the birds blue!!! This is a great pop up book of a bird creating a nest----so cute!!! They used bendy pine needles, feathers, leaves and bark to build the nest in the story.  Cassie loves this book!

This is Cassie's bluebird version to go along with the story:

Which one do you like better?  Cassie said,  "I like the red birds and the blue birds!!".  Well said.

Another idea!  Since we had some pine needles and paint left over.... we had a little fun with painting with them! I think it looks really neat.  You could paint a nest this way!!?? What do you think??? Any ideas???

This post is linked to:
FUN FOR KIDS FRIDAY
FOR THE KIDS FRIDAY
THE PLAY ACADEMY
A Great StART
READ. EXPLORE. LEARN.
KIDS GET CRAFTY
THE MAGIC ONIONS
CRAFT SCHOOLING SUNDAY
PRESCHOOL CORNER
SCIENCE SUNDAY
NO TIME FOR FLASHCARDS
HELPING LITTLE HANDS READ ALONG
MADE BY LITTLE HANDS MONDAY
MADE BY YOU MONDAY
MY DELICIOUS AMBIGUITY/EASTER BOX
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SHARING TIME/RAISING MEMORIES
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