birds

Toilet roll Peacock activity

| Lavania Oluban

This is a really simple craft activity which will be enjoyed by kids of all ages.

You will need:

Toilet roll

Paper plate cut in half

Paint

PVA glue

Bits and bobs

Googly eyes

Small yellow felt or card for a beak

When I say bits and bobs, you can use pretty much anything you have in the craft cupboard. We were going for a rainbow theme to match our window but you could easily divide up the resources and make this a specific colour theme. Think buttons, beads, sequins, lollipop sticks, feathers, pom-poms and tissue paper!

The first stage is to cut your paper plates in half and paint them, I provided just blue and green to make our peacocks tail.

And then you also need to paint your loo roll too. We didn’t waste any time and started to add our bits and bobs without waiting for the paint to dry, we don’t mind getting messy, but at this stage it could be good to pause for a snack or a walk.

Then it’s time to introduce the PVA glue, I pout a bit in a little dish and gave Arlo a paint brush and full access to the bits and bobs to do his thing.

We used glue and a bit of tape to secure our loo rolls to the plates.

Mum tip: for activities like this I sit beside Arlo with my own materials and create alongside him, he likes to imitate and so when I started arranging my feathers he copied me and we were talking about all of the bits and bobs we were choosing and why.

This final thing is to add googly eyes and a beak to your peacocks to give them a face, and voila, there you have it.

DIY Bird feeder craft

| Lavania Oluban

This was a really simple Sunday afternoon activity, as part of our bird themed activities it only seemed right to make something to hang in our garden for the little robin who visits every day.

You will need:

Cardboard

Peanut butter

Bird seed

Hole punch

Twine

I chose to use our wooden shapes as stencils to draw around and then cut out – but you could easily use the cardboard from a loo roll or just go for one simple shape.

Once our shapes were cut out we used a hole punch first….this is important to do at this stage otherwise it gets messy!

Here’s the really messy fun bit…. smear peanut butter all over the cardboard shapes and then dip the shapes in to a container of bird seed.

This part was the most fun for Arlo and he enjoyed seeing it all sticky and messy.

Cut your twine in to short lengths to loop through the holes…. with hindsight it’s probably better and less messy to do this bit before the peanut butter but we didn’t mind getting our fingers dirty.

Then voila… one our shapes were strung it was time to hang them up in the garden and then sit and wait at the window inside for the birds to arrive.

This really is super easy to do and fun for all ages. Check out our little video if you want to see how we managed: