Starting a bird theme with your preschoolers or kindergarteners? Try these fun, hands-on activities!
From simple crafts and sensory play to music, movement, and science projects, these ideas will keep kids engaged while learning about birds.
Perfect for the classroom or at home, these 22 birds activities are easy to set up and great for developing key skills through play.
Art and Crafts Activities
Bird art for preschoolers can be created using materials you likely already have on hand. Be sure to provide plenty of pictures and books for children to use as visual references.
1. Designing Birds
Children can use small lunch bags to create bird bodies by stuffing them with newspaper, or leave the bags flat to make bird puppets.
They can glue on feathers, add paper beaks, and decorate with googly eyes, markers, and crayons.
2. Painting with Feathers
For this bird activity, choose large feathers to use as paintbrushes, having kids dip them into paint and brush them over large sheets of paper for a feathery look.
Alternatively, they can press the feathers into paint and stamp them onto the paper to create a printed design.
Music and Movement Activities
The bird theme lends itself especially well to moving, singing and chanting. Here are some ideas for movement and movement activities:
3. Singing Songs
Teach children to count backwards with Five Little Ducks:
Kids will enjoy the classic song Robin Redbreast:
Teach your kids the cute fingerplay Two Little Blackbirds:
Get them moving along with the actions in Flap Your Wings Together:
4. Moving Like Birds
With a background of soft music with forest/jungle bird calls, challenge the kids to move like birds: waddle, strut, peck, hatch, hop, flutter, flap, fly, hover, perch and roost.
5. Making Bird Sounds
As a group, listen to some audio of various bird noises and songs.
Using a background of music with water sounds, tell children to add bird noises: chatter, chirp, cluck, cock-a-doodle-doo, cry, cuckoo, hoot, quack, shriek, trill, twitter, whistle.
Remember to discuss the various sounds to build vocabulary.
6. Filling Bird Nests
For this playground game, split the children into two teams, each with a different coloured hula hoop as their “nest.”
Before the game begins, hide boiled eggs, bean bags or small toys as “eggs” around the outdoor area.
When the game starts, children race to find the eggs and place them in their team’s nest. The team with the most eggs when time is up wins.
If playing at home, set a timer and challenge your child to collect as many eggs as possible before the time runs out.
Language Activities
Read and make books all about birds:
7. Books About Birds
These popular titles are available online:
Peck, Peck, Peck – Lucy Cousins
Are You My Mother? – P.D. Eastman
Birds – Kevin Henkes
A Mother for Choco – Keiko Kasza
Make Way for Ducklings – Robert McCloskey
8. Making Bird Books
After reading books about different types of birds, invite the children to pick their favourite bird and create a page for a class book or big book.
On large chart paper, they can glue pictures of their chosen birds cut or torn from nature magazines and draw their own illustrations and scenes.
Have the children dictate a few bird facts, and write their sentences on the page.
Once all the pages are completed, compile the book and share it with the group.
Sensory Play Activities
Here are some ways to use birdseed for sensory play:
9. Working with Birdseed
Mixed birdseed, both large and small, works well for sensory tables or bins.
Kids can scoop, pour, measure, and sift the seeds, and even drive toy vehicles through the seed-filled landscape.
10. Making Birdseed Slime
After making up a batch of easy slime, have kids add a mixture of small birdseed to the concoction.
The texture is still stretchy and smooth but also pebbly and colourful.
Dramatic Play Activities
Offer a variety of props, dress-up clothes, bird puppets or stuffed animals for pretend play.
11. Pretending to be Veterinarians
Many children are familiar with visiting a vet’s office, and picture books on the subject can be provided.
Children set up a play veterinarian office, with various props and stuffed animals and birds.
12. Acting Out Stories
Using props and bird puppets, children can act out the books and stories that have been shared or make up their own stories.
Science Activities
Bird science activities give kids a chance to interact more closely with these mysterious animals.
13. Making Bird Feeders
Children make hanging bird feeders out of pinecones or cardboard toilet paper tubes covered with peanut butter and birdseed.
Hang them with twine or string where the kids can observe the birds coming in to sample the seeds.
14. Observing Bird Nests and Feathers
Set up a science table for your kids to look closely at assorted bird feathers and collected bird nests.
15. Building Bird Nests
Share a book about bird nests, such as Mama Built a Little Nest by Jennifer Ward:
Take kids outdoors to gather materials such as moss, grasses, twigs, feathers, bark, leaves, small stones, string and paper.
Sort the materials into categories. Using mud, form the materials into nests to dry.
16. Drawing and Writing in Science “Journals”
Task children with being on the lookout for birds in their gardens, drawing pictures of them in their notebooks.
Kids can dictate several sentences about what they observed for each entry.
Maths Activities
While learning about birds, children can learn maths skills such as counting, operations, sorting, measurement and patterns.
17. Sorting “Birds’ Eggs”
Offer various sizes and colours of play “birds’ eggs” for sorting into buckets or raffia/shredded paper nests.
18. Counting Birds on a “Wire”
Set up a low indoor clothesline for children to attach “birds” made from paper, feathers, and clip-style clothespins.
Once they’ve added a variety of birds, they can count how many have landed on their wire.
Cooking Activities
Try these cooking activities with your bird theme:
19. Cooking Edible Birds’ Nests
Here are two variations of edible bird nests:
Potato Nests
- Mix potatoes shredded for hash browns with olive oil, an egg and salt/pepper.
- Spoon into metal muffin tins and form into “nests.”
- Bake at 400F/200C for 20 minutes.
- Serve filled with boiled eggs.
Chocolate Nests
- Mix crispy chow mein noodles and coconut in a bowl.
- Melt chocolate in the microwave and pour over the noodles, stirring to combine.
- Quickly mould the mixture into nests on a baking sheet as it cools.
- Fill with mini marshmallows or small candy eggs.
NOTE: various recipes for both types of nests can be found online.
20. Making Deviled Eggs
Pre-boil the eggs. Using plastic utensils, demonstrate how to slice the eggs lengthwise and scoop out the yolks.
The yolks can be mashed, seasoned, and mixed with mayonnaise or plain yoghurt, then spooned back into the egg whites. Enjoy!
Outdoor Play Activities
Too often, children forget to pay attention to their beautiful surroundings while playing outside. Observation activities can remind them to be mindful of nature around them.
21. Going for a “Bird Walk”
Lead children on a walk around the garden, around the block or even farther, to see what kinds of birds they can observe.
Take along a bird identification book and binoculars for ease of identification and viewing.
22. “Flying” Like Birds
Encourage children to run safely outdoors, while flapping their arms like wings to “fly.”
Some of the bird noises and movements from the Music and Movement section could also be incorporated. This can be especially fun on a windy day.
A bird theme is often a favourite with preschoolers and can easily transition into other animal-themed units once they’ve explored birds.
Learning about birds also introduces children to various environments where animals live, such as jungles, forests, polar regions, deserts, farms, and even homes as pets.
Here are some more fun preschool themes to explore.
