Feed the Birds | Kids’ Craft

It’s been so cold and icy lately that my kids have been going a bit bananas, waiting for slightly warmer temperatures so that they can go outside and play. We’ve been noticing that the poor birds have been flitting about, looking hungry and sad. My kids and I felt so bad for them that we decided to make some bird feeders – just to help them out a bit. And to put those idle hands to good use!

By: Jodi

Time Required: 15 minutes or more. It depends how creative you want to get!

Materials and Tools Required:

– tape

– scissors

– markers/paints/crayons

– egg cartons

– paper towel rolls

– string

– round-holed cereal (Cheerios)

– bird seed

Cost: I had everything on hand, so it didn’t cost me a bit. But, a large bag of bird seed is about $5.

Tutorial: The “tutorial” is pretty basic with this one. Basic bird feeder #1 is the bottom part of an egg carton, cut to just 6 of the egg “cups.” We then painted it in bright colours (an experiment to see if that would attract the birds), put two long strings under the bottom indents of the carton, tied them all together at the top, and filled the cups with seeds. We made the strings so long because we didn’t want the squirrels to hang upside down (as we’ve seen them do!) and eat the bird seed from the feeders. We had to make it a bit more difficult for them

.

Basic bird feeder #2 has a few more steps but is still very simple. Cut a part of a roll (a bit smaller than a toilet paper roll) and hang a string through it. Then, tape the bottom of both ends so that the seeds won’t just spill out. You’ll want to double your tape up in front of the opening so that it doesn’t stick to the seeds. Decorate your roll with paint, markers, whatever. Then string some Cheerios on the string that is hanging through the bottom of your roll. If it’s difficult to string the Cheerios, just wrap a tiny bit of tape on the string ends, like shoelaces. That will make it very easy to string your Cheerios. When finished, tie this string in a knot and just let it hang down. Insert another, much longer, piece of string through the roll, tie it in a knot and hang all your feeders from small branches (again, to elude those pesky squirrels).

My daughter’s version of bird feeder #2 has significantly less Cheerios on hers because most went into her mouth, but I was impressed with a 2-year-old’s ability to string a little cereal necklace

.

And my son decided to create something a bit more elaborate – a combination bird house/nest provider/bird feeder – with the lid of the egg carton, a paper towel roll, and some chopped up styrofoam

.