Winter is here, and our bird friends need our help! Create a completely bird friendly snack to help make sure the birds have enough food for the cold weather. All you need is a couple of supplies to create this Apple Bird Feeder to hang up outside for all of the birds to enjoy! Even better, once you are done making this cool bird feeder, you can enjoy watching the different colors and sizes of the birds who will flock to your feeder!
Supplies:
1 medium/large apple
Peanut butter/ nut butter alternative
Butter knife (adult supervision)
Spoon
Bird seed or Sunflower seeds
2 Paper Clips
String
Scissors
2 Plates
A tree or area outside to hang your bird feeder
Activity Steps:
Step 1: Before you begin, gather all of the supplies you will need onto an open space! If it is not too cold out, this would be a great project to do outside!
Step 2: Start by grabbing your apple, one of the plates, and the butter knife (and your adult for help). Place your apple onto the plate, and carefully use the butter knife to cut the apple in half.
*Remember to be very safe when using the butter knife, and to always have an adult nearby for help!
Step 3: Grab your 2 paper clips and pull back on the open ends so that they look like hooks! Then push the end of the hook you just made from the paper clip into the top of the apple where the stem is. The round part of your paper clip should be facing out and up. This is going to be where you attach the string later on so that the bird feeder can hang!
*The open end is the end of the paper clip on the outside.
Step 4: Once your apple is cut in half and your paperclips are in place, take the spoon and carefully scoop out just a little bit of the middle of each half of the apple where the core/seeds are. Doing this will let us put more peanut/nut butter on the apple halves and make it easier for everything to stick to the apple!
Step 5: Next, take that same butter knife that you used to cut the apple in half and scoop out some peanut/nut butter to spread over each half of the apple. You want to put enough peanut/nut butter on the halves of the apples so that the bird seed has something to stick to!
Step 6: Now it’s time to dip the apples into some bird seed/sunflower seeds! Take your other plate and put about 2-3 handfuls of the bird seed on it. Gently push the bird seed around so that it evenly covers the whole plate! Then, go ahead and dip your apple halves into the bird seed until all of the peanut/nut butter is covered with the seeds!
*Tip: When you dip the apple halves into the bird seed, push down a little bit so that the bird seed really sticks into the peanut/nut butter!
Step 7: Next, cut 2 pieces of string about the length of your arm. Again, please be very careful using scissors. Once your string is cut, tie one end around the curved end of the paperclip sticking out of the apple half. Do this for both halves of your apples.
Step 8: Finally, it’s time to hang up your awesome apple bird feeders outside! You can hang these from a tree in your yard, or a bush, or maybe another bird feeder! To do this, just tie the other end of the string onto where you would like it to dangle down from outside!
*Reminder: ask an adult for help if you can’t reach the spot you want to tie your bird feeder to!
Now sit back, relax, and enjoy watching all of the different birds that come to your apple bird feeders! Watch for different color birds, different sizes, and see how many you can count! Do you notice that one color of bird likes to eat more from your feeders than others? You could even try making these apple bird feeders with different types of bird seed to see if more or less birds visit!
~Made by Mollie L.