It is no secret that we have a lot of fun with play dough around here. And as long as the girls are excited to make new creation, I’m thrilled to come up with different ideas for them to explore. Since we’ve been doing some bird activities at home lately, I thought it would be fun to use loose parts and play dough to create bird nests.
Get a full week of bird theme lesson plans for
Home Preschool or your Preschool Classroom.
Materials
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- Play dough made from a recipe in The Homemade Play Dough Recipe Book
- Safari Ltd Backyard Birds Toob
- Plastic bird eggs
- Mini birch discs
- Twigs collected from outdoors
- Egg noodles
The girls started by hollowing out the play dough to make nests.
Then it was fun to watch their thinking unfold as they explored how to create their nests.
In the beginning they added materials to the inside of the nest and acted out some stories with the birds.
Then their nests became more elaborate with walls and many guards to keep predators away from their precious eggs.
There were a lot of very interesting creations and it was fun to sit and talk with the girls about the role of each part of the nest. I don’t always remember to sit down and listen to the stories behind the girls’ creations, but when I do it’s a great reminder of the language development that goes hand in hand with this type of play.
For more sensory fun with your bird theme try making a bird nest sensory bin.
Get a Full Week of Bird Theme Learning and Play
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
This pack includes editable lesson plans and hands-on activities for a week full of math, reading, & science learning activities about birds. Watch this short video to see just a few examples of the types of activities and printables included in this set:
This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:
1) B and N Sound Sort
2) b and d Sorting Cards
3) Bird List (for phonemic awareness and other activities)
4) Bird Color Sorting Mats
5) Bird and Not Bird Sorting Cards and Activity Mats
6) 0-35 Bird Number Cards
7) Dot Counting Egg Cards
8) Bird Emergent Readers
9) Feed the Bird Math Game
10) Bird Ordering and Patterning Cards
11) A to Z Uppercase Bird Cards
12) a to z Lowercase Nest Cards
Get Your Lesson Plans
Home Preschool Bird Theme Lesson Plans
Preschool Classroom Bird Theme Lesson Plans
Ideas for Every Month of the Year
You can find all of our play dough invitations here.
beth c
thanks for the post.. i can’t wait to do this with the kiddo! i’ll have to saw up a branch for discs to play with! 🙂