Cheerios Bird Feeders

Cheerios Bird Feeders are a great craft to connect kids with nature and it is also one of the best fine-motor activities for your youngsters. Feed the birds and your kids have a great time making Cheerio bird feeders.

When almost 20 inches of snow fell in Chicago earlier this week, we were thinking of nothing but spring! Libraries closed, schools closed . . . we were home and stuck inside. I had to get my creative thinking cap on to keep my children from literally climbing up my walls. I can always tell when the children start to get a bit stir crazy from being indoors . . . their inside voices suddenly become outside voices. I knew I need to react quickly with something fun and engaging.

I thought there would be nothing better to get our Spring Fever addressed than a picnic indoors! Everyone was to help . . . preparing sandwiches and snacks. I even packed everything up in a picnic basket and off we set looking for the perfect location . . . we settled on the sun room . . . plenty of sun beaming in through the windows to make us feel like we were outdoors.

The picnic was a huge hit with the children, but really didn't ease their jungle fever too much. With full bellies and still loads of energy in reserves, my children were ready for a fun filled activity.

I absolutely had one.

With the snow everywhere and I mean everywhere . . . I knew the birds around our home would have an even more difficult time locating food. I decided to make it an afternoon of learning and creating for the children.

I had a number of sheets filled with different types of birds and where they lived and what they ate.  They learned that birds love to eat insects the most and since the ground is covered with snow, they would have a difficult time locating insects. I turned our afternoon into a lessons on birds specific to our area (this is one aspect I love about homeschooling . . . I can go in whatever direction I want on any given day). We spent the afternoon discussing birds, coloring birds and brainstorming what we could be doing to help them out.

Cheerios Bird Feeders

I pulled out some used paper rolls and told the children we were going to make bird feeders with these, some peanut butter and some Cheerios. What a hit! The children had so much fun rolling their slathered-with-peanut-butter rolls into Cheerios. And naturally, eating their own fill of Cheerios as well.

We looked for the perfect tree to hang our new bird feeders on.

Who knew, birds like Cheerios too!