Maple Seed Birds {Nature Collage}


My two year old daughter was digging in her sandbox the other day when she said, "Hey!  There's a feather in here!"  I asked her to show me and she held up a maple seed.  We used to call them helicopters because of the way they spin down to the ground, but I realized they do look a little like feathers.


We went for a walk around the lake and collected lots of seeds.  It's the perfect time of year for it where we live.
Then we printed some bird coloring pages and started gluing on our "feathers".  My four year old declined to participate, but the two year old and I had a great time.  It was easier for her to dip the seeds into a puddle of glue and put them on rather than trying to squeeze the glue from the bottle.
Here's what we ended up with.
I chose watercolors to add some color to mine and Lainey chose glittery red.  (Same thing she always chooses.)


Book Connections:
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf is a perfect tie in because Lois Ehlert uses watercolor collages with actual seeds and roots to illustrate a story about the life cycle of a tree.

If you wanted to focus on the bird aspect of the project Kevin Henkes' Birds is a great read for preschoolers.  We checked this out from the library and my kids asked for it over and over again.

If you liked this post, you might also like our bird treat ornaments that we did to go along with this book last fall!

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15 comments:

  1. I like your feathers! I must investigate and see if my red maple has these seeds. We'll have to made birds too. Have a blessed week with your little ones!
    Blessings,
    Ava

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  2. Thanks for this idea. We are creating an A-Z nature book and start our first one later this week. We'll have to add a touch of feathers to her bird since that's the first one we're doing this week!

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  3. Wow! I've been playing with helicopters all my life and never noticed they look like feathers! Your birds are gorgeous!

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  4. I love how the seeds look like feathers. Wonderful idea!

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  5. We are always adding things to coloring pages. This is great one!

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  6. I love this ideas! I think we'll collect some "helicopters" when we go on our nature walk this week. Thanks for sharing!

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  7. What a great idea!! I love it!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!

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  8. What lovely feathers the seeds made! What a great idea!

    Please think about linking this post to Read.Explore.Learn on my blog.

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  9. I just wanted to let you know that I did this project with the toddler group at the library (minus the paint) and it was a huge hit! Thank you so much for the idea!

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  10. I'm featuring this post tomorrow at the Sunday Showcase. Thank you for sharing it with us. {And I failed to mention before that the two books you chose are perfect for this activity. Love.}

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  11. I have been admiring these birds every time I see them on a linky party or Pinterest. I featured them this week on my blog! http://likemamalikedaughter.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-year-round-blog-carnival-autumn.html

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  12. These are looking cool and a creative art due to feathers. Its a fun activity and a great idea for creating such kind of other items. I'm planning to utilize my next weekend for this.

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  13. Wow! These are so neat! All the "helicopters" have gone from around here, but can wait to do it next season! Love your blog.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment!