First up in my bird nest project. The inspiration for this project came from Dr. Seuss Read Across America week. My mom let me borrow her Seuss book from her kindergarten classroom, and I chose to read "My Nest is Best" to my 2 day class. The book goes over how birds collect various objects when building their nest. This made me think how fun it would be for the kids to make nests of their own. This project allows for creativity, but I will go over what we did and what I would change in the future.
First of all I will say that I love small groups. I do have an assistant, so this makes this possible for me. I don't always have the time for group work, but I love it when I do. Though I only had the one craft planned for this day, I did make it into 2 parts.
My assistant led the bird group. For this part I had stencils of birds for the kids to trace. We are trying to focus on pre-writing skills, so I am hoping to do a lot of tracing activities in the weeks to come. I had a bird cut-out that I believe originally came from Microsoft Word clip art. You can find whatever shape would work best for you. I wish I would have picked a cut out a little more defined. Many of the children thought they were cutting out a fish. I also meant to have them glue feathers onto their cut out, but I forgot to get them out. If you have the time, I think it would be fun to decorate the birds with feather, googly eyes, markers, etc. This may be more appropriate for longer sessions, older children or a deeper study on birds. We gave the children the choice of blue, brown or red for their bird, but the possibilities are endless. The kids finished this part by gluing their bird to a background paper. We used gray, but again, you could change it as needed.
Now that we had the fine motor skills working with the birds, we needed the nest. I gave each child a half of a paper plate. I had them assemble their nest on the part that scoops in so it would be easier to glue the nest to the background page. I made a mud mixture by blending food coloring together until it looked brownish. All I can say for that is experiment! They really seemed to get into the fact that their glue looked like mud. Just be sure they realize it is glue for their objects and not just paint. Some were getting so into painting it, that they were letting the glue dry before they put anything "nesty" on it. I have them q-tips to spread the glue, but I think paint brushes would work better with glue. Normally we find that the little fingers handle the q-tips better, but the fuzzy and glue don't work together well.
I placed the muddy glue around the objects. They could choose cut up paper, ribbon, yarn, straws, felt, pipe cleaners and tissue paper for their nest. I had some left over supplies from previous crafts, so many things were already cut. However, anything new I left for them to cut to get in that fine motor skill practice. They all seemed to gravitate toward the same type of material, but it was a joy to see their creativity I think I have them too many color options because the supplies looked like a nest, but the colors detracted from the project at hand. It's pk since they did get to express creativity, and sometimes it is good to just recycle and use what you have.
In the end they really turned out cute, and I believe the children had fun putting them together. I enjoyed hanging the final products up for a new spring bulletin board. I am ready to put winter behind us, and what better way than nest building! I glued their nests on after they left for the day. They did glue their birds, but I wanted to test out the durability of their nests. I encouraged them to drag yarn, pipe cleaners and anything like that right through the glue so it would stay. Over all they held together well. Most things that fell off I was able to replace right where the child had originally placed it.
Hopefully I can be more faithful about sharing my teaching ideas. With my 3 day class we did the paper plate "Cat in the Hat" craft you can find here. They turned out adorable, and I was able to split the groups into 2 as well. One group painted while the other assembled the hat and face. My first Dr. Seuss week as a teacher seemed to go well overall. With that being said, Happy Crafting and Happy Springtime!
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