Bird Feeder

Spring is here! The trees and flowers are in bloom. And we are starting to see and hear more & more birds! The Little Chefs have been worried that the birds are “starving” because we have no food for them in our backyard. Their grandparents have a big bird feeder in their backyard – and the Little Chefs love to watch and learn about the local birds. And also like to know that they are getting enough to eat, especially for the baby birds.

Backyard bird feeders come in all different sizes and shapes. You can pretty much make them from anything that can hang and hold bird seeds.  Since my Little Chefs were so worried about the birds being hungry, we decided to make our own bird feeder.  We had on hand some extra disposable tin pans that I had bought from the dollar store.  The Little Chefs thought that the tin pans and the rope would make a perfect bird feeder! We also wanted to make sure that if it rained the water would be able to drain out, so we poked holes in the bottom of the pan (not too big that the seeds will fall through!).

Making the bird feeder was very simple, and did not take much time at all!! The Little Chefs cut 4 pieces of rope the same size (close to the same size!). To put them together we just tied knots in the rope, with help from Chef Mom – so they were nice and tight – and strung them through the top and bottom of the pans. We used a larger pan for the bottom, and a smaller one for the top. And of course, being silly and having fun is REQUIRED when doing crafts!!

 After we tied the rope through the top and the bottom of each pan, we filled them with the bird seeds. Little Chefs E was excited to see sunflower seeds, I had to remind him that it was bird food, and not for Little Chefs to eat!! We then went to find a tree to hang the bird feeders. Which was not hard to do, since right now we only have one large tree in our yard. We recently had to cut a couple old trees down and they have been replaced with small twig trees — still growing!!

This was a fun and simple craft. Not only will it help provide food for the birds, but it is also fun for the Little Chefs to watch and learn about them! Once we hung the bird feeders, the Little Chefs were wondering why the birds were not landing on them to eat the food! I told them that we needed to go inside the house and be patient. Hopefully, by the end of the day they will be able to see some birds eating from the awesome bird feeders that the Little Chefs made for them!

What fun crafts are you doing with your kids this spring?! Try our Butterfly Melted Crayon Art – perfect way to use up all those old broken crayon pieces! Another fun idea is to make your own PlayDoh, I like when it is warm enough to play with it outside – then they can be as messy as they want!!