Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

Since we revamped our light table , the children have been showing a renewed interest in playing with it.  The children have also been enjoying bird watching. (Remember the tube feeders and upcycled feeders we made?) So, I decided to print some birds for the children to play with on the table.  I found these amazing Winter Bird Drawings - A free printable- from Rebecca's Misc . I decided that rather than print them out on regular paper to use transparency film. Brilliant idea, right? Well, at first thought it was brilliant- but to make the birds last, I needed to take additional steps. Even with transparency film made for inkjet printers.... they smudge when children have wet fingers. So, I cut them out and laminated them to keep them from being ruined by little fingers. We now have an amazing set of translucent birds for our light table ! You can find our laminator, the pouches, and the transparency film on Amazon! Along with a great selection of birdi...

We’ve had two snow days in a row….. and they are measuring the snowfall in feet rather than inches!  (Maybe we will have a luge this year after all!!!!)    Some of our feathered friends have been braving the storm to visit our feeders. We've been seeing lots of chickadees and even a few grosbeaks during the snow storm.  Today we decided that maybe our feathered friends could use a few more feeders in the yard, so we made some!     First, we covered some cardboard rolls from paper towels with Crisco.     Then we rolled the shortening covered rolls in bird seed.     To finish them off, we added a couple of tongue depressors as perches. (I cut into the tubes with a carpet knife and we slid them in place). We also used a ...

In a recent issue of Birds and Blooms they featured a bird feeder made with a piece of wood and plastic caps. We opted to adapt their version to make ours more unique and personable. The children had the option to choose which caps to use and how they wanted to decorate their boards. Some chose to use paint, others permanent markers. After the boards were decorated. We added caps with either screws or nails. The children had the option to decide which tools they thought would be best. We also added screws or nails as perch points near each cap for the birds. Each feeder was completed with the child’s own preference and flair! With the extra paint, I put one together too! The feeders in the magazine were filled with peanut butter. We opted to make a sticky treat for the birds made from peanut butter, sunflower seeds (from our Mammoth Sunflowers this summer/fall), and air popped popcorn! I wonder what birds we’ll attract this year with these??? Have you been bird feeding/w...

In addition to some of the purchased feeders we have around, we made a couple of our own this spring with recyclable items. We found the idea for this one made from a laundry detergent bottle here .  (It is decorated with flashy duct tape) This handy hanging feeder from a juice carton was inspired by this post from another blogger.. I'm so sorry, but I lost track of exactly where that post was! (If it was you, please let me know so I can link to you!) Then, after making the first two, we used a crystal light container and an old plate to put this one together. We have been using our handy field guide: to identify a number of our visitors. Some of them have been very easy to identify and "shoot" a photo of, while others have been extremely camera shy! The front feeders have been attracting some starlings.  The juice feeder has been frequented by a number of chickadees. We've seen quite a few Robins in the backyard. The sparrows have really enjoyed our feeders ...

Who said a trip to the beach was a summer adventure?

This time of year can be crazy, for adults and for children too. Sometimes it is hard to keep everything in perspective and to help to teach children to think of others, especially when we live in world with so much commercialization around the holidays. Today, we decided that we would take some time to help out others. Being that the stress of the season can seriously sometimes be "FOR THE BIRDS!" We have opted to help out our little friends..... the birds. I found some great inspiration from Abbie over at Greening Sam and Avery . She also found some additional resources worth checking out! Valerie over at Frugal Family Fun Blog also has some great resources for feeding and identifying birds . Today, we started with popcorn kernels. I thought this would be a fun experience for the children as most of them have never really had the opportunity to see popcorn pop out of the kernels! Most of the little ones didn't know what I had in my hand. (Those that do eat popcorn tal...