An Easy Nature Craft – Nests
Hi friends! In this post earlier this week, I mentioned my desire to incorporate the forest school ideology into our nature walks. With this intention, the girls and I dove into a new nature craft, and learned how to make nests. We started by gathering the materials we needed during one of our nature walks this week.
Did I mention that it just so happened to be 20 degrees?! We didn’t check the temperature until well into our walk, and were stunned that we were able to withstand the frigid weather. But, these are things you slowly get used to as winter settles in here on Long Island.
And, I’m sure those of you to the north of us, would welcome temperatures in the 20s with the weather you must be experiencing this winter.
You should know, this craft was also inspired by a recent science lesson in our homeschool curriculum where Nora was introduced to the weaverbird. Truly it is remarkable how birds are able to create such intricate nests using just their beaks. Because it took four hands and twine to make our small nest here at home.
Surprisingly, the weaverbird takes nest building to another level – many weigh less than 2 ounces, yet they can build nests of over 2,200 pounds! I shared this video with my girls during our science lesson.
CREATE A NEST WITH NATURAL MATERIALS
Items You May Need:
- Small, medium, and large plant stems/twigs
- Leaves
- Twine
- Other natural elements for decoration – acorns, flowers, etc.
The girls and I love going on nature walks at Avalon Nature Preserve, it’s in relatively close proximity to our home, and one of our favorite places to visit. On this nature walk, we walked along the orange trail, which took us through the Hilltop Meadow. And, here we hit the jackpot.
Disclaimer: when we take natural elements from the preserve we only take from fallen plants, and keep our bounty to a minimum. Even the plants that have fallen have important work to do i.e. enriching the soil.
We found pliable plant stems, twigs and leaves of various sizes for our nest project. Then the girls found a little spot lined with boulders to play. But ultimately the cold proved to be too much and we left the preserve for some hot chocolate at Druthers Coffee. Which the girls finished before we made it back to the car. Seriously, record time.
HOW TO MAKE A NEST, AN EASY NATURE CRAFT
Once at home we started on our project. We emptied our collection on the dining room table and started sorting our stems and twigs by size.
Then, the girls and I grabbed a handful of the long stems, and tried to bend them into a “U” shape. Once we had this part down, Nora and I combined our handfuls of stems. Nora held the stems, and I wrapped the connecting points with twine. We repeated this step until we had a small circle of stems and twigs.
Now that the outer ring of our nest is complete, it’s time to fill in the inner ring. So, we grabbed our medium stems and twigs, and repeated the process mentioned in the paragraph above. Finally, the smaller stems, twigs and leaves were used to loosely fill in the base of the nest.
I truly loved this nature craft, it brought a new awareness to our surroundings on a trail we visit often. As well as, a new perspective on the perplexity of nest building. If you try this nature craft please let me know in the comments! Or, let me know your favorite hiking trail, we are always on the hunt for a new nature walk spot.
