Parent Students Nature Activities With The Kids

Nature-based activities to keep the children busy

Free birdfeeder activity packs

Lots of schools are encouraging children to get outside and to connect with nature, my children's school has done just that and set them a range of nature based activities.

Perhaps because the children have been spending so much time indoors recently, it didn't surprise me that they absolutely loved the idea of making and doing things outside. It also didn't surprise me that I got roped into helping (I enjoyed it too really!) and photographing their work to send to their teachers. 

After being involved in the Big Garden Birdwatch, the children are showing quite a bit of interest in birds at the moment and were really interested in making birdfeeders. Their task was to make a birdfeeder out of natural materials, no plastic allowed! and we were asked to make use of things that we had either laying around the house, or that we had found in nature.  - This is how we got creative:

We had a bag of fir cones left over from our last summer's nature scavenging walk and so we decided to make use of them. I took on the task of warming some lard in a bowl until it was soft but not completely melted and the children fought over who would be the first to stir in the birdseed (this wasn't laying around my house, so yes I did have to buy this especially) and the fir cones into the mixture. It was a slightly gooey experience that warranted some clean up time afterwards, but they enjoyed it nonetheless. Once the lard had cooled and hardened again, we tied 3 cones together with string to make our hanging birdfeeder. 

I hadn't appreciated how much birdseed we would have left over so we decided make some more feeders. The next one we made was using the whole peel of an orange after scooping out the edible part, and the egg box that was sitting in the fridge also worked perfectly.

Crafty days with my children usually involve painting something, they're not really bothered what they paint - they just love getting creative with colours. So when I suggested painting some food cans and making a mini bug and bee hotel, they didn't take any persuading. Again, we used materials that we had around the house, so it didn't actualy cost me anything and it was quite fun to do.

After cleaning and decorating some tin cans we filled them with small rolls of cardboard, bits of straw (We have a hamster) and fir cones and we're hoping that if we leave our newly made mini bug hotels in the corner of the garden, that we might have some mini bug residents moving in soon.

Free birdfeeder activity packs

We've put together some free birdfeeder activity packs so our student parents can try some of these activities at home with the kids too. 

You could use your permitted daily walking excercise to come along to the Students' Union, College Road to collect your pack. Simply email studentengagement@staffs.ac.uk to arrange a convenient, socially distanced collection time.