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Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest – Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

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Today is Wildlife Conversation Day. And we’re learning about wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest. Be sure you grab my Amazon Rainforest unit study and free lapbooks.

Two of the most easily identifiable birds are the parrot and the toucan.

Both birds are bright with distinctive colors.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

This easy paper plate craft is a great early elementary activity to go along with your rainforest unit study.

Also, I really enjoy including beautiful quality books.

Add in activities not only during a specific science study or project but pull them out during an art project to reference.

Science doesn’t only have to be taught during science.

Fun Bird Resources

A wonderfully illustrated book like The Big Book of Birds can be brought out to investigate.

In this case, look at the colors of the birds, the shape of their beaks and talk about their habitat and habits.

 Naturally, your child will pick up so much information as you read the little snippets aloud as they look at the pictures.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

These Exotic Bird Toobs from Safari LTD are also a fantastic addition to your rainforest study.

Too, you get a great variety of birds including a toucan and a blue and gold macaw.

 If you want a little more variety instead of just birds they also have a rainforest one with different animals

Rainforest Activities

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

This cutie is a Sun Conure which is a small parrot.

Fun Facts About Birds of the Rainforest

  • All macaws are parrots, but not all parrots are macaws.
  • Of the 3,800 species found in the rainforest, 1,300 of them are bird species.
  • Birds of the Amazon Rainforest eat a variety of foods including leaves, fruits, nuts and insects.
  • Of the 18 species of Macaws in the Amazon Rainforest, several are currently on the endangered list and some species may already be extinct.
  • A toucan’s bill has been adapted to crush and saw the food that it eats such as fruits and nuts.
  • The parrot uses its beak as an additional hand to assist in climbing up trees so it can locate harder to reach food.
  • Out of the four layers of the Amazon Rainforest, the majority of birds live in the canopy layer.
  • Rainforest birds range from tiny hummingbirds to large macaws.
  • Screaming and loud vocalization is the way wild parrots and other birds communicate with one other.
  • The loudest bird in the Amazon Rainforest is the male white bellbird.

Other Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest Resources

Then, add some more activities below.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Finally, look below to make a macaw and toucan bird.

How to Make a Red Macaw Parrot and Toucan Craft

You will need:

  • 3 paper plates
  • Craft paint
  • Craft feathers
  • Google eyes
  • Paintbrushes
  • Glue
  • Scissors

First, for the red macaw parrot, cut 2 paper plates in half.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Paint 3 of the halves entirely red, and for the final half it will be half red and half yellow.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Allow the paint to dry completely.

Cut one of the red halves in half again to create wings.

Glue the red and yellow plate (which is the head and beak) perpendicular to the solid red half that makes up the body.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Add the wings to the sides with glue as well.

Glue some craft feathers together to form a long colorful tail.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Also, attach the tail at the back of the plate to the base with glue.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Finally add a google eye.

For the toucan, it is much the same but with different colors. Cut 1 plate in half and paint it all black.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Cut a beak out of the second plate.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Use a piece of scrap leftover from the beak to make his tail, cutting it into a little wedge and painting it black as well.

We left his “wings” tucked in but you can create flapping wings like on the parrot if you want to add that step.

Paint beak beautiful bright colors and let your child look at them online or in a book for reference.

Let the paint dry and then add a little bright yellow to the throat area.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

Once all the pieces are dry, glue the beak to the body across the top and glue the tail piece to the bottom.

Add a google eye to finish him up.

Wildlife in the Amazon Rainforest - Create Fun Macaw and Toucan Crafts

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

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Today, I’m sharing how to make a fun paper mache American Robin bird craft. Whether you’re doing a summer or spring unit study, you’ll love this craft to go with my North American Robin Unit Study.

And because you can study about birds anytime of the years, this paper mache bird craft can be done anytime. Too, hand crafts stimulate the creativity and imagination of your children.

For younger children, having something to hold like this fun American Robin craft helps them to focus on what you’re teaching

Besides, this is a fun art project that your children will love and want to keep.

Further, once you learn this technique you can do this for any spring or summer birds you find in your yard.

Also, this fun bird craft would make a great gift idea.

So if you’re like us, one of our favorite spring and summer pastimes is sitting in the backyard watching the birds stop by our feeder.

Too, we are always sure to keep it stocked with seed and keep the bird bath clean and full to encourage their visits.

In addition, we have such a variety of beautiful birds that come to eat.

For example, we see cardinals, black capped chickadees, blue jays, Mockingbirds, Mourning Doves, American Robin’s, and many more.

Moreover, American Robins can be seen throughout the US year round and in a wide range of habitats besides your backyard.

Facts About the American Robin

They are spotted in city parks, forests, mountains, tundra, and fields.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

If you look close you will notice that the males coloring is more intense while the females are a bit duller.

Robins like to build their nests among the dense leaves of trees but might also build their nest in a basket or light fixture on your front porch as well.

They love a wide variety of fruit as well as worms, insects, and sometimes even small snakes.

Next, these are two of my favorite nature reference books.

,And they have great bite sized tidbits of information, beautiful illustrations.

Too, while the Big Book of Birds especially is geared toward younger children middle schoolers really enjoy using it too!

The second one is Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World.

North American Robin Unit Study

Next, you’ll love these other tips and resources for a spring or summer unit study.

Use the links for this unit study or any bird unit study.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

Finally, look at this list of easy supplies.

Robin Crafts

  • Cardboard
  • Straight edge knife
  • newspaper
  • scissors
  • Glue
  • water
  • Sturdy craft wire
  • Masking tape
  • Craft paint- rust orange, gray, brown, black,and white
  • Paintbrushes

Directions:

Use a pencil to draw a general bird shape onto a piece of scrap cardboard. You want to use a thick corrugated box rather than something like a cereal box for strength. 

Make it as big or as little as you like.

This first step helps form the base shape and support the paper mache. Cut it out using scissors or a straight edge.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

Move on next to bend craft wire to form the legs and feet.

Fold the wire over several times on each section to be sure it’s sturdy enough.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

Too, I tried taping these to the form but they did not stay on well. But I found that hot glueing them was quicker and sturdier.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

Combine 2 parts glue to one part water and mix well.

We used watered down glue which works as well as old fashioned paper mache but dries a bit faster and is less likely to mold like the wet flour might.

Tear newspaper into 1” or less strips, and make them just a little longer than the widest part of your bird form.

Ball up smaller pieces of newspaper and attach it to the sides of your form with masking tape to create a little more body and define the basic shape.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

Dip your paper strips into the glue mixture, dragging it across the edge of your bowl to remove some of the excess.

Begin covering your structure with strips, alternating directions, and thickness to complete the shape of your bird.

Be sure to smooth each layer to avoid getting too much bumpy texture on your finished product.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

Allow to dry completely. This will likely take a couple days to be sure it is dry through all the layers.

Once dry, you are ready to begin painting and adding personality to your little bird.

Mix a bit of gray and black paint to get the color of the back. You may find the perfect chest color in your paints already, but we mixed a bit of terra cotta and brick red to get ours.

We found the easiest order to paint our American Robin in was by first painting the gray brown back of the bird, then the black capped head and finally the rust brown underbelly and beak,. letting each section dry about 15 minutes between each.

When the paint is completely dry add some details with white like the eyes and some feather details.

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

You can use this tutorial to make any type of bird you like!

Just change up the shape slightly and choose whatever paint colors you need to customize your creation. 

How to Make a Fun Paper Mache American Robin Bird Craft

Spend some time before or after this craft looking up pictures of American Robin babies in the nest, listening to their calls, sketching the pictures in your notepad, and reading through some fun books to turn this craft into a mini unit study!

Hands-On Nature Study: Bird Color Bar Graphing Activity

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As we’ve been working our way through the NaturExplorers : Beautiful Birds unit study, we’ve been learning so much about types of birds, what they eat, how they fly, and even where they go when they migrate. In our area, we tend to see the same few species of birds, but I still wanted the kids to be interested in observing them.

NaturExplorers  suggested graphing the different kinds of birds we observe in our neighborhood and one of the printable notebooking pages shows kids how to keep up with bird colors by using tally marks. My kids, though, needed a little practice with bar graphing.

So we decided to do a bird color bar graphing activity to keep them watching out for the feathered friends who frequent our family home!

Hands-On Nature Study: Bird Color Bar Graphing Activity

To do this bird color bar graphing activity, you’ll need the following supplies:

  • Graphing paper
  • Colored pencils
  • Clipboard (optional)

You don’t have to use a clipboard, but I found that having it helped the kids keep up with their graphing much better. Especially when they’re outside and they decide to have an impromptu dirt digging session, which happened on more than one occasion.

Bird Bar Graphing Supplies

We used colored pencils for the bird colors we see the most often. We see lots of cardinals and blue jays, so we included red and blue. But we also see lots of brown thrashers and crows, which meant including brown and black as well.

Making a Bar Graph of Bird Sightings

To make the graphing simpler, we started the bars by just coloring the first outer square edges. That way, we’d make even bar shapes going up.

If you don’t keep a bar graph neat from the beginning, the bars will look crooked and make the graph almost impossible to read. (Ask me how I know.)

Graphing Local Bird Colors

We saw a good number of cardinals, but we saw even more blue jays. I love them both.

Making a Bar Graph of Bird Colors

But we saw more crows than any other kind of bird! That was pretty neat.

Graphing Bird Colors with Kids

We suspected that it was because we usually saw individual cardinals and blue jays (and even brown thrashers). But crows were always in big groups. It’s common to see 15 of them at once sitting on a telephone line.

More Hands-on Math Nature Study

We’ll see if the crows stay on top over the next few weeks or if they’re upset by one of the other bird species.

The kids absolutely loved doing this activity. And they were getting some math practice without even knowing it. That’s always a win in my book.

Share these other hands-on nature study activities when you’re learning about birds with the kids!

Hugs and love ya,

Easy and Fun Nature Study: Beautiful Birds

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Sometimes nature study can be a little overwhelming (at least for me), but what I love about NaturExplorers is that I can use the program right in my backyard with the animals we see locally. It makes observing animals so simple and stress-free!

Beautiful Birds is truly a beautiful nature study unit for spring! Click here to grab this easy and fun nature study about birds!

The same is true of Beautiful Birds. We can use the curriculum without doing a lot of planning or traveling. Once we printed it out, we could just look through to find a simple activity, head outside, and get started!

Take a look to see what’s included in Beautiful Birds!

Easy and Fun Nature Study: Beautiful Birds

Birds are one of the first signs of spring approaching. Since our climate is fairly warm, all of the birds don’t leave our area in winter. But we do see flocks of them migrating to and fro during winter and early spring. So, when we start to see large groups of birds hanging out in the neighborhood, we know that spring is on the way.

And, since I cannot wait for warmer weather, I was thrilled to break out Beautiful Birds to start taking a look at what’s in this beautiful nature study unit!

Nature Explorers Beautiful Birds

Like Coping With the Cold, Beautiful Birds is a Charlotte Mason-inspired nature study curriculum.

All of the lessons, hands-on activity ideas, and notebooking pages are designed to help kids slow down, observe nature, and appreciate creation.

We’ll be sharing some of the hands-on crafts and activities soon, but for now I wanted you to have a look at the lovely notebooking pages included in Beautiful Birds.

Bird Migration Notebooking Pages

There’s a migration mapping activity and a signs of birds scavenger hunt.

Anatomy of a Bird

Kids can use birdwatching as an art project by drawing pictures of the birds they observe. They can also learn more about the anatomy of birds by labeling the parts of a bird.

Tracking Backyard Birds

Did you know that birds have different types of feet? I didn’t! But various species have differing styles of feet, depending on the food they hunt and the environments in which they live. As you work through the unit, kids will learn more about how these types of feet differ.

There’s also a birdwatching printable to help kids keep up with the species they spot.

Spotting Birds In the Backyard

Track where you spot birds with this backyard mapping activity and learn more about common bird behavior as you watch them move around!

Comparing Local Birds

Use this printable Venn diagram to compare bird species and challenge the kids to think of bird-inspired figures of speech for a quick ELA lesson!

Bird Feeder Observation Sheets

Make some DIY bird feeders and then let the kids observe to see what kinds of birds flock to them!

Bird Color Observation Sheets

Did you know that birds also have different types of feathers? As you learn more about them in the unit, kids can sketch the different types! And use the Flying Colors activity to have a color hunt in the sky!

Examining Eggshells

Go looking for pieces of eggshells on the ground and then examine them. Then spend a little time watching birds forage for food to see how they gather it!

Sayings About Birds

Personally, I loved the Bird Sayings activity. I’m a reading and literature fan, so I’m looking forward to making several copies of this activity so we can keep up with all the bird-related idioms we think of.

Bird Scavenger Hunt Activity

The Signs of Birds Nature Hunt will also be one of our favorites. Our goal is to try to spot every item on the list by the end of spring!

Flying Colors Bird Spotting Activity

And for the Flying Colors activity, we’re going to see how many different colored birds we can find this year!

Beautiful Birds is truly a beautiful nature study unit for spring! Click here to grab this easy and fun nature study about birds!

Beautiful Birds is truly a beautiful nature study unit for spring! Get a copy and see how it easy it is to weave nature study into your outdoor science lessons!

Plan even more fun nature study learning with these simple, hands-on ideas!

Hugs and love ya!

American Robin Free Printables, Resources and Crafts

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I rounded up some fun American Robin free printables, resources, and crafts to kick off a spring unit study.

American Robin Unit Study Ideas

American Robin Free Printables, Resources and Crafts

We pulled out the chalk pastels today, used our Chalk Pastel reference tutorial book that we love, which by the way was created by a homeschool mom and Tiny decided to sketch and do a chalk pastel of the American Robin.

A Seasonal Start in Spring Chalk Pastels

By the way, there is a guide for each season. I love this download because Tiny can read through it on his own.

The American Robin – First Sign of Spring

Art for All Ages Bundle
Sketch of the American Robin @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Like his mom, Tiny is not comfortable with art. However, with some coaxing to change the pace of our day, he pulled out the chalk pastels.

I have tried my best through the years to be sure each son views art as enrichment and pleasure. The emphasis has always been on the pleasure of art and not so much the product.

American Robin Chalk Pastel @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

However, I think he did quite well with this American Robin. Of course, he had to sketch it first so it would be “perfect”.

American Robin Free Printables, Resources and Crafts

I tried to talk him out of it and to use the pastels to free flow, but he really liked the way it came out and more importantly, we enjoyed a change in pace.

We read some online about American Robins and enjoyed listening to the sound of them too. We’ll be looking out to see one or two this year also.

I gathered up some free and fun resources to help round out a unit study or quick study.

North American Red Robin Free Lapbook @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Free Printables & Reference

American Robin lapbook
American Robin Menu
American Robin 3 page information
Coloring Page

American Robin Facts for Kids
Fun Facts About the Robin
6 page pdf. along with helpful map, habitat and facts.
Robin bird house plans for a nest shelf
Several American Robin Coloring Pages

Story of Robin Eggs
Bird Feather Types – scroll down close to the end of the page. Nice pictures of feathers and beaks.
Free printable critical reading passage with answers.
Easy find the bird crossword puzzle
How to identify a robin’s nest

bird-notebook-field-page-.png

50 page pdf download coloring pages of different birds, including the American Robin
Grab my free printables for a bird notebook

American Robin Foot print

(image source: Sweet and Simple Life. Note: please give credit by pinning from original sources.)

Photos, Crafts and YouTube American Robin

Footprint American Robin. Isn’t that the cutest thing ever? What a perfect spring keepsake!
YouTube Mamma bird feeding her young video. There is a cool scene in this video. It is must watch, I but don’t like the music. (so distracting)
American Robin Mini-Documentary YouTube
Eggs hatching photos
Making a rockin’ robin with a cereal box

Paper craft robin
American Robin at a Glance

I hope you can use some of these free and fun resources to squeeze in a few days of learning about spring and the American Red Robin.

American Robin Free Printables, Resources and Crafts

You’ll love these other crafts and ideas:

Hugs and love ya,

American Robin Free Printables, Resources and Crafts @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

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