Saturday, November 15, 2014

B is for Birds. Beans and Play Dough Birds.

Birds Theme Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers

For our letter of the week, we explored birds. Our book about birds was very inspiring to make birds of our own. The main goal: discover hands-on that the birds can be very different and try to distinguish the main characteristics of a particular bird. This post is a part of our "Creative ABCs" series. Our previous activities can be found here: Letter of the Week Theme and Activities.


Seed and Bean Craft for Kids

I love the book we found for this week: "Bring On the Birds" by Susan Stockdale. There is a sentence per page and a new bird per page. With a simple pattern, this is a great visual aid to see and discuss the birds and a wonderful introduction to the new vocabulary. The reference guide to all the birds mentioned in the book can be found at the end of the book.

This book inspired us to pull out our sensory bin that was used with this activity: Cookie Cutter Fun from 3 Dinosaurs. We had different kinds of beans and seeds, pasta, googly eyes, a nest with eggs (optional), and play dough.


Invitation to Build: Birds

Kids practiced making a play dough ball first. Then they decorated each bird with the beans or pasta from the tray. Pictured below, Crayola Model Magic is used. We did find it softer, more pliable, not messy than Play-Doh or home made dough... and more expensive. It holds the shape after air drying for a day without crumbling and can be decorated with markers.


My Firefly loved her birds, made them sing and fly, and asked to make more for several days after. We'll still need to practice making balls though.

Check out our letter of the week activities: Creative ABCs

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