Home School - RSPB: Big Garden Birdwatch

If you've been following our home school journey you will know that I plan curriculum topics for William: These are usually great to entertain both boys and achieve family packed projects and activities (as well as meeting curriculum targets)

One of our topics last term was animal welfare; where we eventually ended up with a school trip to the PDSA. This was great and subsequently I felt we should continue this theme through to this term.

Every year the RSPB do a Big Garden Birdwatch. A lot of schools participate in this; this is actually how I knew of it.

If you want to join in then it is aimed to start this coming weekend; the 24th and 25th of January. If so please visit:
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/

As a house with a dog we felt that we should entice the birds over this week to start revisiting our garden. We decided to make bird feeders, fill two different types of shop bought feeders and make a selection of feeding trays.

We discussed and considered a few things:

1: We wanted to see if we could entice as many birds on the websites list; big and small. We subsequently chose food that suited all types of birds.

2: When choosing our food we decided that we would be kind and cautious to our neighbours and our local area;  we didn't choose any product that contained nuts. (Birds can carry their food over a fair distance, cross contamination could put others at risk!)

3: We decided to use, as mentioned above, a range of feeders; bought and home made.

4: We thought that making them in the afternoon and subsequently putting them out in the evening would entice the early bird.

Here are some photos of the start of our project:

Making fat, bread and seed balls in yogurt pots.

Filling a shop bought feeder.

Oil set seeds that are designed for bigger birds.

A pot of mealworm

An all purpose tray for big and small birds.

Hanging the different feeders.

Placing our trays.

And finally; William's observations.

William said he loved this and he can't wait to do more on this topic. He was happy that he chose different places to put the feeders as he thinks that some big birds will scare the little ones away!

He loved making the fat, bread and seed balls; he completely loved making them, especially because they're messy!! However he doesn't like the smell of the fat and is very unhappy that he still smells it; even when he has washed his hands! 

His final thought, echoed by me, this is very messy maybe we should have made them outside.