We’ve had fun welcoming spring, learning and exploring with birds, eggs and nests.
Our neighbor had a wasp nest – Woot!
The kids and I had fun watching the wasps enter and leave the nest… and then watching me spray it and knock the nest off the side of her house (I hope she didn’t mind).
We rinsed it out (so we wouldn’t poison ourselves) and had a great time removing the dead wasps, looking into the different cells, even taking the nest apart to find some baby wasp eggs. We then went on a hunt for other nests in our neighborhood and made a few of our own with clay and twigs in the backyard.
What I learned about nests from my kids this week:
- Spectacle bears build nests in trees. My daughter wants one as a pet.
- Praying Mantises attack and eat each other as their first “meal” after hatching.
- Some birds will lay their eggs in other birds nests to avoid having to raise their own young.
Building our own nests:
- We checked out library books about birds, insects and animals that make nests.
- We made play dough nests with eggs.
- We created nests out of materials that birds use and attempted to place it in a tree just like they do.
More Nest building learning activities:
Squashed Tomatoes got bits of yarn and string and hung them out to help the birds in her area build their nests.
Esther of Creativity My Passion made a bird out of a tissue box with her daughter.
Caz of A little LEarning created an egg out of playdough, complete with a yolk and the egg sack (whites).
If nests aren’t structured enough for you, maybe our decorated bird house would be perfect!
About Rachel
Love all the fun that you had with nature! Thanks for hosting the link up!
Kerri
It’s lovely to see kids really exploring their outside world. We had a wasps nest in our play house last year but decided to leave it be. I was told that they never use the same nest twice so this year we should be able to explore their fabulous papery construction without evicting them first!
Great blog!!! I’m a new follower from Blog Frog!
My son (3 years old) hasn’t gotten into birds nests yet, but I can’t wait til he does!!!
http://www.wishyoucouldblog.blogspot.com
That wasp nest is ridiculously cool! What a find. Thanks for hosting the link party
I love the nests! I can’t believe you opened the wasp nest up right after you pulled it off your neighbors house. Sounds like a memorabel adventure!
Thankyou so much for featuring our activity, I have proudly put your feature button in my side bar
Getting a close up look of the wasps nest must have been so intriguing, especially getting to open it right up and see inside!
What wonderful nests! I love Esther’s bird!
Wow, that wasp nest was pretty good for this time of the year. I like teaching my son about different animals and showing him how they live. Nest = Home is a good way to bring the idea down to something he can relate