Every Wednesday in Lockdown, our at home nature activities to occupy homeschooled children!
Another easy to achieve bird feeder that can be made from items in the home.
This activity comes from Miro Tartan’s Book ‘Tiny Explorers: Into the Wild’
You Will Need:
- Round mould shape – we used a round ice tray, you could use an egg box or silicone moulds.
- Bird Seed
- Twine or String
- Food Gelatin (we used agar agar)
Helps Children with:
• Patience
• Listening
• Understanding of wild animals
• Caring for nature.
Helps Nature with:
• Caring for the birds.
Mix some bird seed with food gelatin, (we’re veggies so used Agar Agar, picked up from the supermarket). Be careful to follow the packet instructions and not use too much.
Once your mixture is sticky and pliable, spoon into an ice tray mould (or anything round shaped!)
Place string or twine over the mixture and press firmly in, then add more mixture on top.
Leave string out on each end to hang the garland with.
Place into the fridge for a few hours until the mixture has hardened.
Gently remove garland from your mould and hang in your garden for birds.
Children might enjoy keeping a watch on the garland and tracking the species who visit it.
You can find resources to identify garden birds here.
Trying it out at home:
The premise behind Wild Wednesday’s is we find the instructions online, try them at home first and give honest feedback on whether you need to tweak or give the idea up entirely.
Ingredient Sourcing: The It looks to me like the best thing to make the balls in is an empty box of quail eggs – is that something you have lying round the house? Certainly wasnt one here! but we made do with a round ice cube mould and while it made less balls, they worked fine!
We bought agar agar cheaply from Amazon and used hardly any so can do future craft activities with it.
Mess Factor: The Agar Agar is a little sticky and bird seeds can scatter a little, but certainly nothing a wipe up and a hoover didn’t solve!
Attention Span: This kept Lucas (age 10) entertained throughout the activity. Our only issue was finding a gap in the rain to hang it out! We’re looking forward to watching for birds eating it.
Observations: The instructions aren’t too clear how much gelatin mix to add, we fund it easiest to add a tiny amount and then add more gradually until it started to mould together.
All in all, a nice fun activity. As it involves a bit of quiet concentration, a nice activity to help unwind after a long day of homeschooling. Easy enough for smaller children too.
If you are looking for an easy wildlife activity I really do recommend giving this a go. We’d love to see any recreations too! Send to hub@quorumpark.com
Try some of our other Wild Wednesdays here: