The Perfect Nest

The Perfect Nest

by Catherine Friend

I just got this book in my last Scholastic book order and LOVE it! We are doing a unit on birds in my kindergarten class. This book was "perfect".

The pretense of this story is that Jack the cat wants to build a nest to attract a chicken. Jack hopes this chicken will lay a yummy egg that he can cook it into an omelet. Throughout the story, various birds arrive at the nest. You will meet birds of all kind. This book is so much fun to read because each bird has a different accent. I promise you will get a giggle out of your little ones.

Activity Suggestions:

1. COOKING: Make cheese omelets or scramble eggs with your kiddo. Have your child count the eggs as they are cracking them into the pan.

2. NEST MAKING: Collect various items from nature and try to make your own perfect nest. Leave the nest in a tree in your backyard and see if a bird makes it her home.

3. FEATHER PATTERNS: Pattern colored feathers on a sentence strip/headband and staple into a hat. write the counting numerals under each feather.

4. FEATHER PAINTING: Use the tip of a feather as a paint brush and create a beautiful piece of painted art. For a more 3D effect, glue some of the feathers onto your painting.

5. FEATHER COLLECTION: Begin a feather collection. Tape feathers into your nature journal as you find them and record what kind of bird they come from.

6. EGG EXPERIMENT: We conducted an experiment to see the likelihood of an egg surviving the fall from a bird nest. Each child brought in an egg that had been packaged in various ways hoping to keep the egg from cracking. I crawled on top of a ladder and dropped each "nest" (the packaged egg) from the top of the ladder. We noticed that most of the time if the package landed on its bottom the egg survived/ didn't crack.

I dropped an egg and had it land on its bottom. Then, I dropped an egg and had it land on its side. The first egg did not break and the second egg did. We discussed the importance of the egg's bottom and top being the strongest so that when it is laid by the hen it can survive the fall.

7. EGG MARBLE PAINTING:Draw a simple egg shape on the cardboard from a cereal box. Cut it out and use it as a tracer. Have your child trace and cut out the egg on white paper. Choose 3 colors f paint. Using three different marbles, dip one into each color of paint. Place your child's cut out egg into the bottom of a disposable pan. lay the marbles on top of the paper. allow your child to roll the pan slowly in all directions. This should apply a random design of color on the egg.

8. EGG CRAYON RESIST: Follow the direction above. EXCEPT instead of marble painting... Have your child design his/her "perfect" egg using crayons. After the egg has been colored, use watercolor paint to paint the entire surface of the egg including the crayon. The crayon will resist accepting the watercolor creating a quite stunning effect.

Have more ideas for the perfect nest. Please leave your ideas in a comment. Thanks a bunch!

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