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Science

How to Make Easy DIY Bird Feeders With Kids

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

We’re making easy diy bird feeders today. Also, look at my post Free Bird Unit Study and Lapbook And Fun Edible Bird Nests.

We have been enjoying the Coping With the Cold unit study so much!

It’s such a fun and relaxed winter unit and it encourages us to get outside, even when the weather isn’t great.

Since I tend to stay indoors and under the covers during winter, this has been an excellent motivation to get up and outside during cold weather!

In the unit study, we learn more about how animals, including birds, adapt to cold weather.

And, of course, one of the primary adaptations birds make is to migrate to warmer climates.

How to Make Easy DIY Bird Feeders With Kids

As they travel, though, they are always searching for sources of food.

One of the suggested activities in NaturExplorers is to make a DIY bird feeder. So that’s what we did!

NaturExplorers: Making Easy DIY Bird Feeders

Since we like to include the scientific method in our nature study, we decided to make two different bird feeders and evaluate which one is the most popular with our local feathered friends.

We went with one sweet-tasting feeder and one with a more savory taste: a peanut butter birdseed feeder and a sweetened fruit cereal feeder.

I got the idea for the peanut butter birdseed bird feeder.

And I got an idea for a fruit cereal bird feeder.

Both are really, really easy, so they’re perfect for little ones to make!

Making a DIY Bird Feeder

You only need a few supplies to make the peanut butter birdseed feeder.

Constructing a Birdseed Feeder with Kids

Once you’ve finished constructing it, all you have to do is hang it up!

Simple DIY Birdseed Feeder

It doesn’t get unusually cold where we live, but we do see flocks of birds migrating in the skies from time to time.

Hanging a Birdseed Feeder with Kids

So it’ll be interesting to see if the birds that are still here will like this food.

Easy Hanging Birdseed Feeder for Kids to Make

Ta-da!

Building a Froot Loop Bird Feeder

The fruit cereal bird feeder is a wonderful fine motor skill strengthener for kids. Plus, they can always snack on a few as they work!

Crafting a Cereal Bird Feeder

Once all the cereal pieces have been added, just twist the ends to close the circle.

Hanging a Cereal Bird Feeder

Then you can hang that one up too!

Easy Fruit Cereal DIY Bird Feeder

It looks so lovely against the green leaves.

Comparing DIY Bird Feeders

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to watch to see which bird feeder is more popular with the birds in our area.

I think that the sweet cereal feeder is going to empty faster than the birdseed feeder, but we’ll see!

This was such a nice way to include hands-on activities in our nature study using NaturExplorers.

Making easy DIY Bird Feeders is a fun winter nature craft to do with the kids. Add this easy hands-on nature craft to your homeschool unit study. Click here to see how to make it!

Want to see more fun hands-on science ideas to try with the kids? Stop by to see these posts!

How Animals Cope With the Cold (Easy Nature Study)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How animals cope with cold.

Winter is a wonderful season for learning about animals with kids.

Animals go through so many different behavioral changes to adapt to cold temperatures and, when you can study those changes in your own backyard, it really makes scientific concepts come alive.

So I was excited to try the NaturExplorers ebook “Coping With the Cold”. I’ve been wanting to add in nature studies to our homeschool but didn’t need anything that requires a lot of fuss.

Winter is a wonderful season for learning about animals with kids. Animals go through so many different behavioral changes to adapt to cold temperatures and, when you can study those changes in your own backyard, it really makes scientific concepts come alive.

NaturExplorers ebook “Coping With the Cold” is a Charlotte Mason-inspired nature study program for learning about how animals adapt to winter temperatures. And it’s loaded with simple DIY projects, science activities, and plenty of notebooking pages too!

I was given this product free because I asked for it and couldn’t wait to use it. ALL opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. When I do accept a product it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here. Now on to the fun stuff!

Take a look at what all is included in this excellent science curriculum!

NaturExplorers Review: Coping With the Cold

Since NaturExplorers is a Charlotte Mason-style program, the curriculum includes plenty of nature study activities and hands-on learning ideas for studying winter animal behavior.

Nature Explorers Coping With the Cold

And, along with all the printed activities for kids to complete, there are loads of notebooking pages and drawing prompts so they can record what they observe outdoors.

Nature Explorers Winter Animals Notebooking Pages

Winter NaturExplorers 1080x1080 (Instagram)
What I really like about NaturExplorers is that the program encourages kids to spend plenty of time outside in nature, finding out what animals do for themselves.

Nature Explorers Migration Activity

For example, the activities about bird migration were really informational and geography-based too.

Did you know that birds actually follow “flyways” – a version of bird highways? I didn’t!

Migrating Animal Research Planning Page

This migrating animal research planner was such a neat idea, because it’s a great way to help children plan a research topic, organize their ideas, and outline an essay.

This is an excellent activity for middle school language arts.

Studying Winter Animal Adaptations

By the way, these are just some of the notebooking and journaling activities in the program!

Easy Nature Study!

Winter Animal Observation Sheets

Charlotte Mason strongly encouraged art and journaling and NaturExplorers does a fantastic job of prompting kids to draw what they see and note what it tells them about animal behavior.

It’s art and science in one activity!

Winter Adaptations Research Activity

And, because I always love to encourage reading, I was thrilled to see that the program featured an activity for kids to complete using a nonfiction book about winter animals they choose from the library. (My favorite place!)

Winter Adaptations Art Activity

Even if you can only observe one or two different kinds of animals (depending on where you live), the idea of adaptations is so thoroughly covered that kids will be able to spot other adaptations in animals they read about.

Migrating Flocks Observation Sheet

Some of the other notebooking pages include questions for kids to answer, based on their own observations, and charts for them to fill out.

Studying Winter Animal Behavior

I also loved that NaturExplorers is so open-ended. There’s no weekly schedule or layout included, so you can pick up and pause as you need to. It’s a very relaxed curriculum and you adapt it to your own schedule.

Perfect for us eclectic homeschoolers!

I’ll be sharing a few of the NaturExplorers activities in upcoming posts, but – trust me – this is a fabulous winter nature study program that you’ll love as much as the kids do!

How to Purchase It.

►Product Name: Coping With the Cold.
►Website: Our Journey Westward.
►Type of product: Ebook instant download.
►Ages: Multiple grades 1st to 8th grade.
►Price: $12.00

Winter is a wonderful season for learning about animals with kids. Animals go through so many different behavioral changes to adapt to cold temperatures and, when you can study those changes in your own backyard, it really makes scientific concepts come alive. Click here to grab this easy nature study!

See even more ways to include hands-on science in your homeschool!

Hugs and love ya,

STEM: Build a Da Vinci Parachute Activity

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have a fun stem build a Da Vinci parachute activity. Also, look at my unit study and lapbook Renaissance 1300 to 1600.

This year I’ve developed a whole year of STEM activities to go along with our science standards.

We study a new inventor each month. This month it was Leonardo Da Vinci!

Studying about Leonardo da Vinci can combine two subjects kids usually don’t consider as similar: art and science.

When you can tie the arts, engineering, math, and science into a project; you’ll have kids who are going to be able to creatively solve problems their whole life.

Combining many different facets of learning keeps kids engaged and focused in their schoolwork.

Physical Science STEM: Build a Da Vinci Parachute Activity. Studying about Leonardo da Vinci can combine two subjects kids usually don’t consider as similar: art and science. Click here to add this fun hands-on science activity to your unit study!

When kids begin to understand there is a creative aspect to science, they become more interested and excited to dive into deeper science concepts.

These activities are perfect to use with a Leonardo da Vinci study. You can combine them with an art study, and have a whole Leonardo da Vinci unit!

I chose to build and test da Vinci’s parachute. After studying his sketches, we used math concepts such as perimeter and isosceles triangle constructions.

This also uses physical science such as gravity, mass, and air resistance.

Da Vinci Parachute STEM Activity

What You’ll Need:

  • 1 piece of graph paper
  • Four ⅛ inch dowel rods; 12 inches long (Don’t pre cut these)
  • Four ⅛ inch dowel rods; 16 inches long (Don’t pre cut these)
  • 4 pieces of string; 18 inches long
  • masking tape
  • thin paper for the covering
  • 5 paper clips per parachute
  • ruler

We began this project by doing a bit of research on Da Vinci as an inventor. We researched his sketches and found out many of his sketches were ideas of inventions that we use today.

Then we began the project.

Making a Hands-On Da Vinci Parachute

The first step was to sketch out the blueprints. To get in a little math, I gave the kids the following problem to solve:

The square base of the pyramid will be 144 sq feet. Each square represents 2 inches. How many inches will each side of the base be? Draw it out on your graph paper.

After checking to see if the kids had drawn a 12 x 12 square, it was time to cut the dowel rods into 4 12” pieces.

Da Vinci Parachute Activity

You may need to use craft scissors to cut through the dowel rods.

Next, we used as little masking tape as possible to connect the 4 dowel rods into a square base.

Make a Da Vinci Parachute

Then it was on to the triangular sides.

By presenting another math problem, the kids were able to find out how long the isosceles triangle had to be. Here’s the math problem:

Renaissance Inventor Da Vinci Parachute

The total perimeter of the isosceles triangular sides is 44”. Since we already know the base is 12”, what will be the length of the other sides?

To solve the problem the kids had to subtract 44 from 12 to get 32.

Then they would divide 32 by 2 to get 16. The triangular sides will be 16” long.

The remaining dowel rods should be cut to provide 4 16” rods. These rods are then carefully taped onto the base of the parachute.

When the triangle pieces are all taped together and lying flat, it’s time to cover the sides of the parachute with very light paper.

To do this, we traced around the outside of the triangles and then used as little tape as possible to attach the paper.

Making a Da Vinci Parachute

Then it was time for the strings. This was the hardest part. You must cut four 18” strings.

To keep them from getting tangled, tie all 4 strings together at one end and then make a little loop and tape up each individual string at the other end.

You will then loop a paper clip through each loop. Use one more paper clip at the top of the strings, to connect all of the strings to the top of the parachute. The strings should be hanging down the middle of the parachute.

Model of Leonardo’s Parachute

Constructing a Paper Parachute

To test out our design, we connected each individual string onto a washer.

We used the school playground castle to drop our parachute and to see how long it would hang in the air. We tested different weights to see how we could achieve the longest hang time.

Launching a Da Vinci Parachute

Here’s a recap of the project:

Step 1: Cut and tape together 4 12” dowel rods to form a square.

Step 2: Cut and tape onto the square 4 16” dowel rods to form 2 isosceles triangles. Lay flat.

Step 3: Trace the triangles with light paper to cover the parachute. Use tape to attach the paper

Step 4: Cut 4 18” pieces of string and tie together at one end. Then make a small loop at the end of each string and use a little tape to keep the loop.

Step 5: Attach a paperclip to each loop and and one at the top where the strings are tied together. Use that paper clip to attach the strings to the middle of the parachute.

Step 6: Attach a washer to the 4 paper clips and then find a spot to test your parachute.

This was a highly engaging activity that my kids loved. They learned a lot about Leonardo Da Vinci, a lot about mass, gravity, and air resistance, balance, and a little about perimeter and shapes.

STEM: Build a Da Vinci Parachute Activity

I’m so glad that we took on the challenge of designing Da Vinci’s parachute!

Share more hands-on history learning below!

Easy Hands-On Science: Label the Atom Playdough Activity

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have an atom playdough activity.

This year, we’ve been learning some introductory physics with our fourth-grader. And you can’t talk about physics without mentioning the atom.

Atoms are all around us.

They’re even inside us!

Easy Hands-On Science: Label the Atom Playdough Activity

When my son learned that everything in the universe is made up of atoms, he was amazed.

But that led to more questions, such as “What are atoms made of?”

Which is how we ended up learning more about the parts of the atom through this fun label the atom playdough activity!

Pick up the free printable diagram and see how to complete this hands-on science lesson with your kids too!

Hands-On Science: Label the Atom Playdough Activity

To complete this label the atom playdough activity, you’ll need the following:

  • Printer
  • Laminator
  • Assorted playdough (at least three colors)
  • Printable Atom Diagram Playdough Mat (Download this image and then print it as is to make it a full-size printable.)
  • Mini sticky notes
Atom Playdough Mat

The playdough mat shows a basic diagram of an atom, complete with three electrons moving around the nucleus.

Inside the nucleus are two protons (designated with the positive sign) and two neutrons.

Of course, this is a very simplified diagram.

Scientists now know that electrons travel around the nucleus so quickly that they actually tiny electron “clouds”!

Making a Playdough Atom Diagram

After printing and laminating the atom diagram, you can start having the kids add small balls of playdough to fill in the picture.

We started by adding three electrons with green playdough.

Learning about Parts of an Atom

Then we added two red neutrons inside the nucleus.

MORE FOURTH GRADE HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM ACTIVITIES

Making an Atom Diagram Out of Playdough

And, finally, two protons made out of blue playdough.

Labeling Parts of an Atom

Now it’s time to label each part of the atom!

We added mini sticky notes to each item on the mat and then labeled them all.

Playdough Atom Labeling Activity

Electrons were first, then the nucleus.

Then we labeled the protons.

Labeling a Playdough Atom

And the neutrons.

Learning About Atoms with Playdough

And we’re done!

This was a quick activity that really helped the kids visualize what’s inside an atom.

It’s truly incredible to know that the movement of the atom is what makes up matter inside and around us.

It’s also neat to discover that atoms are in constant motion, even inside solid objects!

Items that appear to be stable are only stable because the atoms that make them up move super duper slowly.

Easy hands-on science: Label the Atom Playdough Activity

But they’re still moving. The chairs at your dining room table? Yep, the atoms inside are in motion.

The foundation of your house? Its atoms are moving too!

This year, we've been learning some introductory physics with our fourth-grader. And you can't talk about physics without mentioning the atom.Atoms are all around us. They're even inside us! When my son learned that everything in the universe is made up of atoms, he was amazed. But that led to more questions, such as "What are atoms made of?" Click here to make this fun and easy hands-on activity!

If you want to try this activity without playdough, you can print it out and have the kids color it in with markers and then label each item on their own.

Or you can challenge them to draw a similar design themselves!

Ready to share more hands-on science lessons with your kids? Try these fun activities!

Hands-On Geography: Australia Awesome and Deadly Animal Art

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

For years now, we have completed “continent studies” and hands-on geography as a way to learn more about our world and it’s geography as we homeschool. Too, look at my page Homeschool Geography for hands-on and simple ideas and tips.

The truth is: it was so much easier to do this when they were younger. I selected books from the library, we looked at the pictures of different dwellings and foods, and we colored in maps.

But my boys are older now. The same approach no longer keeps anyone interested for very long (including me!).

In order to keep them engaged and increasing in their overall level of knowledge, I decided it was time for a change.

This year, my boys are each “in charge” of their own continent for a more in depth study. Each month, they pick a topic to cover from their continent and “teach” each other about it.

My youngest chose Australia for his study this year without a second thought.

For his first presentation, he asked me to help him put together a presentation on Australia’s deadly creatures, because animals and danger – I am not sure I need to say more.

See how we used this hands-on Australia unit to study the continent’s awesome and deadly animals!

Hands-On Australia: Awesome and Deadly Animals

You see, I remember being in middle school. I remember preparing presentations to deliver in front of the class.

I remember listening to my friends. As much stress as it caused, I have to admit, I really learned from “teaching back” activities. I want my boys, despite being in a “classroom” of two, to experience the same.

And that’s why this hands-on activity was such a good way for us to learn about geography together!

What You Need:

My son began his research at the library, checking out various books on Australia in general, and a few on the animals themselves. For further investigation, we also watched a YouTube video and looked at various pictures of aboriginal art online.

More Hands-on Australia Activities

Then it was time to get started.

Hands-On Australia Activity

Cutting Out Australian Animal Templates

Our first step was cutting out the templates. We then used them to trace animal outlines onto black construction paper.Then we cut out the traced forms of the jellyfish, shark and snake.

Deadly Australian Animal Templates

(Incidentally, if I could do it all over again, I would eliminate the tracing portion and just have my son use the templates to paint. Cutting each animal out twice was far more scissor action than either of us have seen in a long time.)Next, he glued the black deadly creatures onto brown construction paper backdrops.

Decorating Australian Animals with Paint
Making an Australian Animal Display Board

This color scheme is consistent with what we learned about aboriginal art.Taking the q-tips and the paint with us outside, he carefully “dot painted” each of the black forms, true to aboriginal tradition. The Q-tips make perfect paint brushes and are easy to clean up!

Q Tip Painted Australian Snake

The more my son painted, the more excited he became.

Q-tip dot painting is really easy, even for children with fine motor differences or those who get a little perfectionistic with their art projects.

It looks wonderful, even if the artist struggles a bit with steadiness.

Australian Deadly Animals List

When all three had dried, he attached them to the poster board.

Giving a Report about Deadly Australian Animals

At the last minute, he also decided to add a “cheat sheet” with facts he wanted to share about the different animals (printable) as well as a list of Australia’s Top 10 Deadliest as learned from the video and books.Once his presentation was assembled, his brother and I sat down and he taught us more about Australia’s Box Jellyfish than we ever thought possible!

He did a great job and I had a lot of fun working with him on this project.

If you love hands-on geography, your kids will love some of my favorite hands-on geography programs:

Overview of Activity:

Step 1: Trace and cut-out deadly creatures on black construction paper.
Step 2: Attach to brown construction paper background.
Step 3: “Dot paint” black areas with various colors.
Step 4: Create list and fact sheet about Australia’s deadly creatures.
Step 5: Attach all to posterboard and teach what you’ve learned.

Learning about continents is a way to learn more about our world and its geography as we homeschool. This Australia awesome and deadly animal art activity is not only fun but it gives kids a chance to learn about science too. Click here to do this fun activity if you’re doing a unit study about Australia.

Overall, this hands-on activity worked well for us. It incorporated in a different culture’s art and allowed my son to really dive deep into a subject he is already incredibly passionate about. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!

Learn more about the countries of the world with the hands-on geography activities below!

Written by Shawna at Not the Former Things.