Make-It Monday: Feathers For Lunch

My kids love the library, but I must admit that I have have no system when it comes to picking out books. The books I pick out have to meet one main criteria: they can't have too many words! A few weeks ago, we picked one that quickly became a favorite: Lois Ehlert's Feathers For Lunch! The book is filled with beautiful pictures of several different kinds of life sized birds. At the back of the book, each picture is repeated and facts about each species of bird are given.

After our first read, I printed a template of a simple bird shape found here. The girls then picked the birds they wanted to replicate and colored the bird outlines to look like the birds pictured in Feathers For Lunch. They loved picking out the colors and doing the best they could to replicate each bird. As hard as it was, I tried to let them have the freedom to use as much or as little of the colors as they wanted. Their interpretations were fun to watch!

A few tips:

Write down the name of each bird on the back, so that later you'll remember which one it is supposed to be. Because they have a "loose" interpretation, sometimes the bird looks nothing like it is supposed to!

Once they are finished coloring, you have a lot of options as to what do! We punched holes and tied ours with yarn to a wire hanger for some mobiles. Other ideas: make puppets by gluing/taping the birds to popsicle sticks; glue them to a tree your child has painted or a blue background as if they are flying through the sky...the possibilities are really as endless as your imagination!

Be ready--your kids will be looking for different types of birds for weeks to come!

Hummingbird, Oriole, and Blue Jay (l-r) by Ella Grace.

I'd love to see pictures of your finished product! E-mail them, or, better yet, post them on your blog and let me know!!

Have fun!!