Here's a great threading activity using natural materials which not only encourages fine motor skills, but also encourages children to think about the wildlife in their backyard too.
To make our heart shaped berry bird feeder we used:
Fresh Cranberries
A length of strong thin wire
We used cranberries to make our feeders as we had some leftover from Christmas, but any dried fruit would work well for this.
We started creating the feeder by threading the cranberries onto the wire one at a time. As the berries were fairly soft it was easy to push the wire through & slide each one along. Activities like this are a great way to encourage hand eye co-ordination in young children, & explore their fine motor skills.
These cranberries were a neat size for little hands to manipulate, & offered an opportunity to explore size, number & texture as we added them to the wire.
We continued to thread the berries until we around 24 on the wire. I loved the different shades of red the berries offered.
To create our heart we bent the wire into a circular shape, & secured the ends of wire by twisting them together. I cut off any excess wire so we were just left with a berry circle.
Then we gently bent the wire into a heart shape, taking care not to squash the berries to much.
We threaded some garden twine through the top of the heart & our berry bird feeder was ready to share. Once your bird feeder is outdoors it's fun to keep an eye on it to see if you can spot which birds (or wildlife) are enjoying your creation.
If you're looking for more bird themed activities, you might like these:
