The Big Garden Birdwatch – Fun Activities for Kids!
The Big Garden Birdwatch is the worlds biggest wildlife survey, held over a weekend at the end of January. Organised by the RSPB, this fun event is for bird loving beginners through to birding experts. Simply set aside an hour over the 28-30th January 2022 and count the birds you see in your garden, from your balcony, or in your local park.
Why is the Big Garden Birdwatch important?
Sadly the UK has lost 38 million birds over the last 50 years, with many of our once common birds in serious decline. (The state of the UK’s birds report)
The Big Garden Birdwatch helps to monitor populations of our garden birds and how they are changing year on year. With over a million Big Garden Birdwatch participants in 2021, that’s a lot of useful data!
Fun Garden Bird Activities for Kids
If you’re taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch this year, why not make a weekend of it? It’s the perfect opportunity to get the kids involved in learning about birds in a fun and creative way. Our Buddies and crafty Babipurian’s have been busy making learning fun and getting crafty with some great Big Garden Birdwatch creative inspiration. Lets take a look at what they’ve been up to!
Amy and Tilly’s Cardboard Bird Feders
We love Amy and Tilly’s cardboard bird feeders made back in 2020. The easy, child-friendly design is perfect for preschoolers, and needs very few things to get started. You’ll probably have most things you need already.
Make Tilly’s bird feeders by drawing around Lanka Kade animals on an old cardboard box. Then cut them out and spread with peanut butter, before covering in birdseed and threaded ready to hang up. You can find step-by-step instructions over on the blog >HERE<
Alex’ Garden Bird Scavenger Hunt
Alex, @eco_friendly_twins has toddler twins, so wanted a simple and engaging activity to suit their curious nature! We love her scavenger hunt idea, making garden bird outlines and painting them with OkoNorm finger paints.
Once dried it was simply a case of hiding them round the garden for her twins to find! By exploring the different birds features and discovering where you might spot them is a fun way for little children to learn to recognise these feathered friends.
Hannah’s Cardboard Play Dough Bird Pictures
Here I drew the outlines of some common garden birds and set my children up with our bird ID book and OkoNorm play dough. Adapt this easy cardboard craft for all types of learning through play.
They enjoyed looking up their bird and choosing the right colours to fill in the outlines. A wonderfully sensory way to learn some common garden bird identification that’s fun for kids of all ages! The great thing about this is that we can reuse the cards and playdough again, or for a more permanent craft, we could use finger paints.
Amy and Tilly’s Finger Print Bird Picture
Amy and Tilly have been making a fabulous finger print bird collage for this years Big Garden Birdwatch. This is how they made it:
Step 1. Go for a walk and collect some dry sticks.
Step 2. Stick a big sheet of paper to the floor or table, Babipur tape is perfect for this.
Step 3. Arrange the sticks on the paper, this could be to look like a tree or maybe just randomly. If you want to be able to move and display the picture later, the sticks need gluing down.
Step 4. Let your child dip a finger in each paint colour and make finger prints all over the paper. These finger prints will become the birds. They can either be done so it looks like they are sitting on the branches or flying around.
Step 5. Once the paint is dry, use a black pen to turn each finger print into a bird. Add eyes, a beak, legs and wings.
Step 6. If you glued down the sticks you could hang up or display the picture, it would look lovely with a seasonal display. If you didn’t glue them down maybe it could be used as a base in small world play. Lanka Kade birds might like to come and visit the birds in their tree.
Lisa’s Bird Hotel
We love Lisa’s Bird Hotel, made from a recycled cardboard Babipur box. This ingenious cardboard box craft makes a fabulous display for her beautiful wooden bird collection, complete with feeders and perches!
Teamed up with Reel Wood Letters and an O_wow wooden camera, this bird display table is the perfect introduction to learning about wild birds.
Make a nest with Bex
Our Babipur Buddy Bex (@the_wholesome_cumbrian IG) chose to make a birds nest with her little ones! Gathering nest materials from the garden is a great way to get children outside in the winter months. Look for twigs and sticks, dried grasses, dried leaves and moss – you may even find some soft feathers to line the nest.
Once inside its time to sort the different materials and arrange them in a circle to build a nest. This is great for fine motor skills and a wonderful sensory experience too, exploring the textures of the different building materials.
You could add moss, wool or feathers to make a soft lining and then add some eggs – Grapat Rainbow eggs are a great addition!
This is a great activity for sharing ideas about different birds, eggs and nest building, discovering the qualities of different materials, and problem solving.
Babipur Garden Birdwatch – Share with us!
If you’ve enjoyed these craft ideas and have made any at home, do give us a tag on social media – we’d love to see your Big Garden Bird Watch creations! Tag us @babipur #LoveBabipur in the Babipur Hangout Facebook page, Twitter or Instagram.
For more information about taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, head over to the RSPB website and sign up >HERE<
