Bird Feeders

I signed the kids up for summer reading at our library and during our weekly library trip I decided to pick up a book on birds that are indigenous to our area.  It's just a simple field guide with lots of pictures to help you identify what you are seeing.  We have the most excellent vantage point to see the birds as our kitchen sits high up and there are trees right outside our sitting area window.  We have seen so many kinds of birds living here that I had never even noticed before, so I decided the kids might like to make some little bird feeders to hang on the limbs right outside our window and watch for the birds.  (Yes, I do know it is the wrong season technically for bird feeders.)  I thought it would be neat to do this project twice a year to see the different types of birds we get during warm and cold weather.  The field guide also tells us which birds are year round, migratory, summer, or winter birds for our area.

All you need is:

• an empty toilet paper or paper towel roll tube
• peanut butter
• bird seed
• field guide for local birds

Coat the paper towel roll tubes with peanut butter all the way around.

 

Then roll the coated tube in bird seed or mash the seeds into the peanut butter.

Now just find a nice viewing area and keep your book in that area.

See how good that view is??  Unfortunately, we still have yet to see any birds feeding.  We have had bad thunderstorms every night this week and it started pouring about an hour after we put our feeders up.  They are still up, but they haven't been needing as much to eat I'm sure as the worms are probably plentiful with this wet weather.  This may not be the best time of year in retrospect, but I think my middle child is learning a lesson in patience from this.  He has probably been the most excited of the kids about seeing the birds, too.

The birds finally came.  This is a tufted titmouse.  Bet you never heard of that before.  ;)

 

Kid Art T-Shirts

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!  We took the kids to see Brave and had dinner with some family, but otherwise the day was pretty calm and out of the ordinary which was much needed around here.  This morning the kids got out their art supplies and decided to draw, so we decided to make t-shirts to show off their happy work. 

Little sister cannot be left out as you can tell.

All you will need for this project is

• Art supplies (paper, pencils, markers, paint, crayons, etc.) as you desire
• T-shirts
• Iron on heat transfer paper

A note on heat transfer paper - It can be purchased in regular or for dark colors.  We used the one for dark colors because our shirts were blue.  If you have a white shirt you can get the regular and it is usually a little cheaper.  It just depends on what you want.

To begin with you need a great piece of your kid's art work.  You will just have to scan into your computer or copy the art work on your printer depending on the options your printer gives you.  Read the instructions on the heat transfer paper to make sure you face it properly for printing, and print the art work onto that transfer paper.  Then you will just have to peel off the backing and iron it onto your child's shirt.  Super easy and very rewarding for your kiddos.  Mine love seeing their art work displayed, and my oldest is a planner.  He already has in mind something to design for the back of his shirt.