Bird Feeder Craft

Discipline: Nature Craft
Age Range: all ages
Estimated Time: 15 minutes plus observation time
What You Need: one apple, birdseed, yarn or string; peanut butter; knife (with adult supervision); writing utensil; paper or printer (optional)

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When the weather changes seasons from colder weather to the sunny skies of spring, many birds are building nests and preparing to have their young. Spend time together as a family creating this bird feeder together! When the bird feeder is finished you can hang it up outside and watch all the birds that visit your yard.

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Instructions:

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  1. With a parent’s help or permission, carefully use a knife to cut horizontal slices of an apple. They should be around a ½ inch thick.

  2. Use a pen or pencil to poke a hole near the top edge of each apple slice. Be sure not to poke too close to the edge, or the apple may break!

  3. Spread peanut butter to cover both sides of each apple slice. If you are having trouble getting the peanut butter to stick, consider dabbing the sides of the apple slice with a paper towel to dry it off before spreading the peanut butter.

  4. Cover the peanut butter apple in birdseed! Turning over both sides of the slice in a bowl of birdseed works great for this part of the activity.

  5. Cut off around 1ft of yarn and thread it through the hole you made in the top of your apple. If it is tricky to find your original hole, just poke a new one! Then, tie off the yarn with an overhand knot.

  6. Hang your bird feeder wherever you’d like! Trees and hooks near windows are great for observing birds from your own home.

  7. If your bird feeder runs out of seed, or falls off of its yarn, feel free to repeat this process and make as many bird feeders as you would like.

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Spend some time each day watching your new bird feeder to see what types of birds visit. It might take a few days for the birds to find your feeder, so don’t worry if you don’t have any visits the first day.

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Helpful Hints
If you’d like, you can complete this craft using a pinecone instead of apple slices! Tie a string around the top portion of the cone and then smear peanut butter all over the scales of the pinecone. Sprinkle seeds over the cone so that they stick to the peanut butter. Discuss which method might attract more birds and why.

Reflection Questions

  1. What do you notice about the birds that visit your feeder?

  2. Are they large? Small?

  3. Do they have any specific colors or patterns that are obvious?

Download the Making Observation Activity Page to record your findings or write them down in a notebook to help keep track of your observations

A Resource to Identify the Birds You Observe

This website is an excellent resource for identifying and learning about the birds that live near you

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