This day the boys and I were gifted an absolutely adorable sight, I felt very blessed to be able to teach my children an active lesson from nature instead of using our usual whiteboard drawings, books, photos or videos for visual impact.
As we strolled down the sun lit road a rustling sound caught my ear and I turned to discover a beautiful black bird tossing the dried leaves about beneath a tree. It was a wonderful sight and a new one for my boys. I just had to stop, breathe, appreciate and gaze for a while at this characterful bird, encouraging the boys to do so also. It was a fascinating sight to watch this little chap swiftly sifting through these leaves moving them to the side discovering what lay beneath them. We had a friendly giggle at the scene as the bird moved in a peculiar way, dig dig, shift shift, bob bob, foraging away. We loved it and the bird knew we were watching and I am happy to say it didn’t seem to mind 😊
We let him be and continued on our journey finding magical stones along the way.
It tied in with my post wonderfully.
For this activity we learned a few basics about birds and tree nests and what some are made of and how they are constructed. Many species of bird build a nest as their home for their family in trees, be it a temporary or long term place to raise their young. When it comes to bird’s nests no two are the same and there is a range of building styles from simple stone building to intricate weaving and mud cementing. They will often use a Y shaped branch for the simplest of locations or pretty much any branch going and the way they are built is a reminder to man’s nature. The birds will use plant material and often mud to plaster the structure with. They use items such as sticks, feathers, grass, straw, hair, saliva, stones, mud, moss, leaves, rotten wood and flowers to construct their nest, weaved structures are often created and a padding of feathers or moss is regularly used for comfortable bedding. Sometimes there will be just one platform to the nest and others there will be several, all depending on the bird.
We kept it simple for the age group of the children. All items we used were recycled and yes we know Mum isn’t the best artist!
I started by drawing a tree for our nest and then we proceeded in cutting it out, this lead to my eldest Son for some reason asking me to draw a city! I did as he wished and they both enjoyed the cutting.
We then created some birds, eggs and a nest to add to the tree.
To make a nest just like ours you will require:
* Sticks
* Feathers
* Cardboard
* Scissors
* Shredded Paper / Straw /
* Colouring Pens / Pencils / Crayons
After the equipment has been gathered. Draw and colour or paint all the additional items for the activity, the trees, (buildings), birds and eggs. Cut them out and place accordingly. Next take the shredded paper and build a nest in the style of whichever bird you like adding the feathers and sticks etc. Once you are happy with your nest fill it with the birds of choice and their eggs and place it in the tree to complete your scene.
There are many different outcomes available from this activity, have fun finding what works best for you and remember children love the detailed explanation that comes with each stage of tree-nest building.
We hope you have great fun and let us know in the comments how you got on, please do link us to your photos too 🙂
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a bionomic consciousness 