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Foster a love of nature in your child by getting him to help you make a bird feeder for the garden
Difficulty rating: ****
Time to prepare: ***
Cleaning up: ***
Activity time: 20 minutes to make and under 3 hours to cool down
A great way to take some special time out with your toddler is to sit in the garden and talk about the different birds and plants you see. Ensure your garden is aflutter with winged friends by placing a bird feeder in it. By helping you make this, your toddler is also getting a great hand-eye coordination workout and mathematical concepts are introduced to him as he helps you measure out the different ingredients.
- Dissolve 3 sachets of gelatine (available at supermarkets) in 1 cup of boiling water, asking your toddler to pour the gelatine into the water from the sachets and helping him to stir it in
- Add approximately 4 cups of birdseed to this mixture. Be sure to cover all the seeds in a layer of gelatine – you don’t want to use too much or too little
- Place a piece of string in a few silicone or plastic jelly moulds and scoop the birdseed mixture over this
- Place these in the fridge to cool down and set
- Once set, pop the bird feeder balls out. If you’re struggling to get them out place the mould in some hot water for a few seconds
- To make this activity even more child friendly, draw the recipe out for your child on a piece of card – draw 3 sachets of gelatine and a cup of water, etc and encourage him to follow the visual steps.
Tips:
Use different shaped plastic moulds for more interesting bird feeders that make gorgeous features for the garden, as shown above. These also make nice gifts for your pre-schooler’s teacher with a bit of a personalised touch.
With a few simple ingredients and some help from mom these bird feeders are simple enough for yout toddler to make.
