teach me mommy: birds and nests

As I looked over all my piles from my vigorous pruning last week, I kept thinking what perfect bird nests they would make. And then when I saw these little eggs a few nights ago, I was really thinking about that perfect pile of twigs. So this week for teach me mommy school we learned about birds and made a couple of nests.

We started out by reading Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman (this book belonged to jimmy when he was a little tyke). My kids love this book, which is about a little bird who goes looking for his mother.

We looked through a bird watching guide book that is full of pictures of our local birds. Andy chose his favorite and we played thumbs up and thumbs down (thumbs up if I name a bird characteristic, thumbs down if it isn't.) We practiced making bird calls. And you have no idea how entertaining that was (unless you have a five year old boy. then you know.)

Of course the day wouldn't be complete without a project or two. . . or three.

Cutting, bending and gluing together a paper nest with cotton ball eggs.

Then we tackled that pile of twigs and formed some real bird nests. We had no idea how many twigs it takes to build a nest! Those little birdies have to work hard! (you better believe i played that up)

Andy found a perfect rock to put his little tiny nest on outside and we decided to put the big one on a table in our music room.

If I had any food in this house besides lasagna noodles, peanut butter and orange juice (I really really really need to go grocery shopping. ugh.) we would have had a bird/nest theme snack too. Something like pretzels (nests) with a couple eggs resting on top (little whopper easter eggs) or some sunflower seeds. Lucky for me, Andy was so engrossed with the nest making he didn't notice we were sans snacks today.

some other ideas:
flying around like birds to music
going for a nature walk around the yard to gather sticks and weeds to make your own little nest
walking around the yard/neighborhood looking for real bird nests