May 26, 2013

Birdhouse Craft

Paint and Decorate a Birdhouse

Please join me in welcoming Ann of My Nearest and Dearest.  Ann graciously agreed to write a guest post for me, and I love the beautiful birdhouse her son decorated!  Ann has so many wonderful ideas.  One of my recent favorites is her Recycled Outdoor Music Station.


Paint and Decorate a
Birdhouse  

I'm delighted to be here at Train Up A Child today. I've been following Allison's blog since my pre-blogging days and have drawn inspiration from so many of her kids' activities. Thanks for letting me share here today with you and your readers, Allison!

Paint and Decorate a Birdhouse On a recent trip to the dollar store I picked up a couple of wooden birdhouses. My son Peanut (35 months) loves painting and he also enjoys anything and everything to do with birds. I knew he would be thrilled to paint and decorate a birdhouse of his own. I set out a paper plate with blue, green, and white acrylic craft paint, paint brushes in a variety of sizes, and a birdhouse for each of us.

Kids can paint their own
birdhouse to hang outside 

My hunch that he would enjoy this activity was spot on. He layered coat after coat of paint on his birdhouse, creating lovely shades of blues and greens.  

Painting Bird Houses is a
Fun Activity for Little Ones

Then we sprinkled glitter (to reflect the outside light) on our birdhouses.  


Although Peanut applied a generous amount of glitter on his, it was soon covered up by more paint. :)

kids activity for spring.
paint a birdhouse  

We let our birdhouses dry and headed outside to play. Step two of our project was to decorate our birdhouses. I like to use objects from nature in our art and craft activities so I set out a plate with periwinkles and sea glass. Peanut came up to the deck and watched me decorate my birdhouse (I used a glue gun to attach our beachcombing finds). He decided that he preferred his birdhouse unadorned and went off to play again while I decorated mine. I sealed both birdhouses with mod podge.

Bird house decorated with
sea glass 

We had so much fun with this inexpensive activity that I may just make another trip to the dollar store to pick up more birdhouses. I think Peanut would happily paint enough to fill the forest! I loved watching the care Peanut took painting his birdhouse and the pride on his face when he helped select a tree to hang it on.

 


We've done a few other simple and fun bird activities over the last few months. If you enjoyed this one, you might also like: Make a Pretend Bird's Nest, Making Pinecone Treats for the Birds, or our Bird Ornaments. Thanks for reading! -Ann

Ann Ann is a mom to one and a home daycare provider. She is passionate about play-based learning and getting out in nature. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

4 comments:

  1. So happy to be guest posting for you! Thanks Allison!
    -Ann @ My Nearest and Dearest

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  2. Such a fun activity! Great idea for a project.

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  3. I love how those birdhouses turned out. They are so cute! I'm inspired to make some with my kids.

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  4. Ann, I found this post through Pinterest and I fell in love with this bird house. This year, for the first time, I will be teaching preschoolers at a local Homeschool Academy (they meet one day a week and the mommys do the rest). We could study about birds and make a bird house! Yipee! My first lesson plan, in the works.

    Do you blog hop? If you do, would you please share this and any other posts you'd like on my Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop. It goes live Tuesday evening 7pm EDT and is top of the fold till Thursday midday.

    Blessings,
    Sinea
    Ducks ‘n a Row

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