JCC Association's Early Childhood Curriculum Project 'This New Month'

Introduction:

Teach children to step into their role as keepers of the earth by creating these easy-to-make homemade bird feeders. From Heshvan through the winter, birds often need assistance in finding food, especially birds living in urban and suburban areas.

Materials

Stale bread or pine cones
peanutbutter
birdseed
yarn

Directions:

Select a piece of stale bread or a pine cone and coat it with peanut butter.
Note: Check with parents prior to doing this project to be certain that none of the students has a peanut allergy. If a student does, you can purchase suet from a local garden store to use in place of the peanut butter.
Dip the feeder into birdseed, so that birdseed covers up the peanut butter.
Tie a piece of yarn to the feeder.
Hang the feeder from a tree.
Enjoy observing the birds that come to the feeder to eat.

Related Activities:

Teach students the principle called tzaar ba-alei hayyim--prohibiting causing any unnecessary pain to animals.
Make a list of the different types (color and size) of birds that come to the feeders.
Make a chart to compare how often each type of bird visits the feeders.
Take photographs or make drawings of the birds that visit the feeders.
Use a tape recorder to record the different sounds that the birds make at the feeders.

Send a note home with the bird feeders letting parents know how to hang them and suggesting that the families try to keep track of some of the birds or other animals that eat from it.