Glittery Peacocks

This is just a short post to show you our peacocks. We made them almost the exact same way we did last year, so if you want more information, go here.

We did, however, do a couple things differently. Instead of having the kids color the coffee filter with markers, they used droppers and colored water.

I used the colors from my neon pack of food coloring. The kids squirted the water over the filter.

We let them dry overnight. We made the body of the peacock the same (my typical bowling pin-shaped body, neon wiggle eyes, cocktail toothpicks for the crest, a beak and feet). But for some reason I decided to make black beaks. I was getting sick of my orange beaks and peacock beaks are grayish anyway. I didn't have gray, so I went with black. I also made brown feet. The kids made the eyespots the same as last year, by dipping their thumb in paint and making prints on the coffee filter. And finally the body was glued to the filter. Now here's where we changed things up again. Instead of making the smaller dot in the eyespot with paint, we used glue. The kids dipped their finger in glue,

then they pressed it inside the painted spots.

We started with pinkies, but ended up just using the index finger because it was easier. After all the glue spots were on, the kids chose a color of glitter and sprinkled it over the glue.

(I should say I sprinkled the glitter. I knew we only needed a little bit, and I also know kids like to dump glitter. So I did this part to avoid a huge mess.) Finally, we shook off the extra glitter and we had a beautiful peacock!

They turned out so lovely. I can't wait to hang them up!

UPDATE: Here they are hanging in the hall, with the words, "Friends of a feather flock together."

Fun Fact: A peacock's train can be several feet long, but is shed every year.

Hummingbird Craft

We learned about beautiful hummingbirds today! I saw this cute craft at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman, using poms poms, a toothpick and a muffin cup, but I changed it a bit to better suit my kids.

We started yesterday by painting half of a small paper plate with watercolors.

Then today we put it together. I made peanut-shaped bodies and cut the paper plate into thirds. Since I can't cut into three equal pieces without measuring, I just cut a triangle from one end,

then used that as a template to cut the other end,

and the piece that was left was bigger. That way, two pieces would be the same and serve as the wings. And the remaining piece was the tail. The kids glued them to the back of the hummingbird body.

Then they flipped it over and drew eyes, but I think wiggle eyes would be cute.

For the sparkly gorget (yes, we all made male hummingbirds), the kids put a drop of glue on the "throat" and spread it around with a paintbrush.

Then they added glitter.

When it was dry, the kids picked out a colored toothpick to use for the bill. (I used a black sharpie to color my toothpick, but I thought the kids might as well have colorful ones!) I poked a hole with the toothpick under the eyes, and then added a mini glue dot to the back, directly over the hole.

I cut the toothpick so it wasn't as long, or as pointy on the back end, and stuck it in the hole. The glue dot kept it there. But I also added a piece of tape to cover up the stickiness of the glue dot.

And that's how we made our hummingbirds!

Because of the sharp toothpick, I decided to hang these guys up high, above our flamingos.

And now I have to put out my hummingbird feeder!

Fun Fact: Hummingbirds are one of the most aggressive bird species and will attack other birds, including hawks, that infringe on their territory.

(Comments have been turned off for this post, due to an experiment. They will be back on soon.)
**Linking up to Sharing Saturday!**

Feather-Painted Flamingos

Today was flamingo day! It was so fun learning about these birds. I love when I learn something new along with the children. I took last year's flamingo craft and changed it up a bit. I used the same pattern and traced a bunch of flamingo bodies and feet on white paper.

My original template was just something I drew myself while looking at a cartoon of a flamingo. If you don't feel like drawing your own, you can do a google search of flamingo templates. I put out a bunch of pink crayons so the kids could color the beak and feet. (Last year they colored the whole thing.) I also put out some black crayons for the tip of the beak.

Then, for the body, I put out three different shades of pink paint and added feathers.

The kids used the feathers as paintbrushes and gently swept the feathers across the paper.

It didn't need to be completely covered.

When they were dry I cut them out and assembled them the same way I did last year, by using tape to attach the pipe cleaners to the body, and more tape to attach the feet to the bottom of the pipe cleaners. (Although this year I used two full pipe cleaners. Last year I cut one in half. So our flamingos are much taller this year!) And I again taped two feathers to the back. But we did one more thing. As long as we had the pink paint out, I decided to paint each child's hand to make a print for the wing. When dry and cut out, the kids attached the wing and added a wiggle eye.

And those are our flamingos!

At the writing center today we learned about the letter F, so we practiced writing fly, feather and flamingo. Then the kids could draw a picture to go along with the words. I loved the flamingos they made, so I just had to take pictures!

I love the black flight feathers on the wings. The kids learned so much today!

Fun Fact: A flamingo's eye is bigger than its brain!

**Linking up to Sharing Saturday and TGIF!**

Eagle Handprints

I'm back with another week full of bird crafts! (The very first theme I shared on my blog just over a year ago was birds. Check those crafts out here!) After all the talk about the Decorah eaglets in my class, how could I not teach them about bald eagles? So that's what we learned about today. I even got out the measuring tape to show how big they are. (Females are bigger than males and can be 3 feet tall and have a wingspan of 7 to 8 feet!) You should have seen the eyes pop of the kids' heads when we measured 7 feet across!!
I found this cute eagle handprint at Mind Games, but I changed it a little.

Here's how we made it. First I painted the kids' hands brown, but painted their thumbs white.

They pressed one hand down with their fingers together and thumb out, then they pressed the other hand on the opposite side.

Those are the wings and tail. (Mind Games had a brown tail, but I like the white because bald eagles have white tails.) Then, after the kids washed, I painted the side of their fist white to make the neck/head.

I liked how the curve of the pinky looked. Mind Games used a fingerprint for the beak, but I wanted to try using the pinky, since I'm already painting the fist anyway. So I put a little yellow paint on the pinky.

Not bad, but it was a little long. So next I tried only painting a little bit of the pinky, and made sure the child curled it when they made their fist stamp.

Ahh, much better. When they were dry, the kids used oil pastels (love them!) to make an eye and draw in a background.

We ended up with some beautiful bald eagles!

I love how this next one has a tree with a nest and eggs!

And food in its mouth!
I always start my bird unit with this book:

Funny Faces, Wacky Wings, and other Silly Big Bird Things by Cynthia Copeland. It has great pictures and shows a variety of birds, including the now extinct dodo. The kids love it!

Fun Fact: Bald eagles mate for life and many return to the same nest every year, always adding to it and making it bigger. Typically the nests are 5-6 feet in diameter and 3 feet tall. But a nest used for decades can be much, much bigger! (Yep, we got out the measuring tape again!)

**View the Decorah Eagles here. They are getting so big!**