Saturday, April 28, 2012

Dingbat Mommy Strikes Again

Help Your Preschooler Learn About Science and the Outdoors with a Homde-made Bird-feeder
I keep telling myself that I really am a smart person.  I got great grades in college and I even taught statistics at one point in my life.  But, for the life of me I cannot figure myself out sometimes.  Let me back up.

I've been looking for fun things to do outside with my kids.  So, my friend and co-author (we are almost finished with our book by the way.  I promise.), Susan Case, suggested that I put peanut butter on a pine cone and have the kids help me watch for birds.  I thought that sounded like a super idea so one day I got the kids all excited and they helped me find a pine cone from the backyard and then I smeared peanut butter all over it and we put it in the tree.  We waited.  And waited.  And waited.  No birds ever came.  The kids finally wandered away to find something else to do. 

outdoor fun for preschoolers, bird watching for kids, funny mom story

Later that day, my Mom came to play with the kids.  I told her about our little problem.  She went over to inspect our work and started immediately laughing.

"Katie," she said.  "You didn't put any birdseed on here.  Did you really think the birds would just lick up this peanut butter?"

"Oh," I replied.  "Well I know how much the dogs like peanut butter.  Susan didn't say anything about birdseed, just peanut butter."

My Mom patted my back.  "I think she assumed you would know about the birdseed."

So, yes.  I am a dingbat Mommy.  If you look closely, you will notice not a drop of a birdseed on the picture above.  We went to the hardware store the next day and bought birdseed.  Now in this next picture you see just a subtle difference.  This time, birdseed is sprinkled on top.  And yes, this time the birds liked this much better and the kids really enjoyed watching the birds come peck at our home-made bird feeder.



In fact, they loved it so much that Munchkin Girl is now an avid bird-watcher!  We even made a trip to the book store to buy a "Bird Book" as she calls it, so we could know what we were looking at. This ended up being a really fun activity and every day we find new birds to look at in the book.  I used to think that all birds looked alike, but when you look closely, you will see that each bird has different colors on its neck its back and different size beaks.  Now now she watches our bird-feeder and yells out, "It's a sparrow!"



Here is a book you can buy so that your kids can become bird-watchers too!  We have upgraded to a cool bird-feeder to maximize our fun too!






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15 comments:

  1. What a fun idea. We have lots of birds around so that would work well for us. Thanks.

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  2. I also thought all birds were alike! That's an exciting activity to do with the kids, as it also is turning out to be quite educational for them.

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  3. I would have done exactly what you did and not put out the bird seed. I thought the peanut butter would attract them too!!

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    1. Michele, thank you! I'm glad I'm not the only one!!

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  4. Replies
    1. Thank you so much! You have made my day!! :-)

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  5. So sorry I forgot to mention bird seed! I'm the goofy one. Also, you can tie the pine cone with a string or piece of yarn and hang from tree. Glad it is working!

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  6. Too funny! It's okay, we all have our moments!

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    1. Thanks Amie! I keep hoping my moments will get less frequent but they seem to do the opposite!! :-)

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  7. Hahaha, I totally knew where this was going. At least you can call yourself out on it. And don't worry, that's totally something I would do too!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I learned to laugh at myself at an early age!! :-)

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  8. you totally made me LOL with this one. Things just slip our mind sometimes though

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    1. Thanks Anel! So glad I made you giggle!! :-)

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