Blue Jay was one of them and a favorite among the children due to its beautiful royal blue color.

As we flipped through books about birds and their nests, the kids decided they wanted to try to build a birds nest of their own. As we are a media free home and rely mainly on books for research, we had to be a bit creative with what was available to us at that moment.

So here is what we came up with !

Birds Nest Activity

What you’ll need:

-From the Garden: Hay, dry grass, bendable sticks, moss, fallen leaves

-Tin foil

-2 Small bowls to shape the nest . (1 bigger than the other)

-3 sticks of bees wax to be melted

- enamel mug or pot to melt the wax

The kids scavenged the backyard for fallen leaves, hay , grass, moss and anything that could be used as building materials for our nest.

We used Alaia’s wooden kitchen metal bowl (the larger one) for shaping the nest and covered it with tin foil.

Once the larger bowl is fully covered we placed our building material inside the bowl and arranged it as to make it look like a real bird’s nest. Note we used a bigger dry leaf in the bottom, than the hay  and other things on top.

In the meantime place the bee’s wax inside the enamel mug or pot over the stove on low heat until it is completely melted. We had our Mug on top of the griddle as to melt slowly.

Pour the melted Bee’s wax over your covered bowl and than using your hands and the smaller bowl apply pressure down into the bowl and straws then hold. As the wax dries the nest begins to harden and maintain its shape. You can place the bowl in the fridge to help cooling the wax faster if you want. We had to do that because the kids were too anxious to see the result.

Once the wax is cooled you can peel the tin foil away and your nest will be ready!