# 5 - Nest

[JohnsWife]

Not a nest but it does relate. We made simple birdcages. All you do is blow up a balloon, cover it with lengths of yarn soaked in a simple paste. Hang it up to dry, and after a day, pop the balloon and you have a wonderful birdcage. We placed a stick inside and glued a colored bird in there.

Very messy craft but lots of fun.

[Candi]

I found this after reading the Usborne book Eggs and Chicks (very good, by the way) and thought I would share:


http://www.usborne-quicklinks.com/usa/u ... =1&id=1069

[Candi]

Here is a neat craft I found--great for day 5!

http://activitypad.com/pages/child-activity-2.html

[cbollin]

If you are still looking for pictures to use for Day 4 activity,then consider some of these from

http://www.squidoo.com/babybirds
lots of neat photos

eggs in nest
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31567364@N00/542766978/

bird feeding babies in the next
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kubben/503379259/

*****
another neat site
http://www.akidsphoto.com/critters/birds.html

-crystal

[salmy]

Animals at Home by Jane Burton (this author actually has a ton of books that go with many of the units with MFWK)

[karlafoisy]

I found this link for making a nest. This might be a little easier than the nest project in the parent instructions, but it still helps your child to see how complicated and amazing a bird's nest really is.

http://www.brighthub.com/education/early-childhood/articles/43338.aspx

[karlafoisy]

We used My Very First Book of Animal Homes. It is perfect for Day 2, because it is a split-page board book, and children can match each animal with the home it lives in. Where do the bees live? Where does the bird live?

[KimberlyND]

There are so many good ideas here. I've already printed out several of the craft ideas and saved the links to websites for the online activities. I can hardly wait to do them! I just wanted to add a link to a neat book we read, http://lib.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isb ... freddickey, [u]Hummingbird Nest a Journal of Poems,[u] by Kristine O'Connell George. Their family observed a hummingbird that made a nest in their patio tree. She kept a journal while the eggs incubated and hatched until the fledglings flew away. Then she wrote the poems. My dd (5) loved the book as she loves rhymning.

[shoefairy3]

I found some sequence pictures for day 4. It isn't quite the same, but pretty close

http://www.dltk-kids.com/t_template.asp ... bstory.gif

[psalm126mama]

Mister Roger's Neighborhood on Amazon on demand - free with Amazon prime or $1.99 per episode

Season 1993, Ep. 2 "#1662 - Love - A Field Trip to an Aviary
"Mister Rogers goes to the aviary to see lots of different kinds of birds and talk with the ornithologist there about how he feeds and cares for them. In Make-Believe, Lady Elaine plans an exhibit and a "soap opera" about love."

Season 4, Ep. 2 "Families (#1552) Families Come in Different Shapes and Sizes"
Mister Rogers shows a film of a bird family, and an origami artist shows how to fold paper birds. In Make-Believe, puppet couple Betty and James adopt a baby daughter. Mister Rogers says there are many different ways to be a family.

Season 1997, Ep. 7 "#1717 - Be Yourself - A Visit with Magician David Copperfield
"Magician David Copperfield teaches Mister Rogers how to do a magic trick. It takes lots of practice. In Make-Believe, X is giving flying lessons, and there's a video of what the world looks like from a bird's point of view."

[psalm126mama]

On Netflix Streaming:

Sid the Science Kid:Feeling Good Inside & Out, Episode 2 - "Home Tweet Home" - Sid wonders why there aren't any birds living in the birdhouse he made with his father. Sid and his friends later discover that many animals build and live in their own homes, including beehives, anthills and birds' nests."

[cbollin]

So we are doing the Nest unit and am wondering do we boil the noodles or leave them raw? It doesn't really sound to appealing (the noodles); other suggestions? We are scheduled tomorrow so please respond

I want to make sure you have the right item. "chow mein noodles" means the crunchy things... you don't cook those... one brand, La Choy, comes in a can and are there for crunching...
They are a crunchy topping. not a cooked noodle....

here..... you don't have to buy this brand..... but a picture helps understand why chow mein noodles are the "twigs" in the nest.
http://www.lachoy.com/products/noodles.jsp

if you prefer? would pretzel sticks work better?

check this thread for similar recipes....and tweaks with and without peanut butter, or using rice crispies... and coconut....
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=46

oh oh oh oh oh... pictures are great..... . if you put "edible bird's nest" in your google search... check out the pics and tweaks on the recipe on familycorner dot com
I am sooooooooooo drooling over the variations out there from ones with marshmallows.... chocolate... and toooooooooooooo cute... the ones made in Spring time with Peeps in the nest. too cute!


we thought it tasted nice. I just told my oldest what I was typing about... and she remembers these nests and liked them. She was 7th grader helping little sister......

is anyone else hungry after this thread, or just me?

I need to go eat lunch.. healthful lunch.. no chocolate nests....

you know... you'll have to tell us tomorrow how it goes...

-crystal

[momxnine]

I'm hungry! Ben & I were going to make these a couple of days ago (they're in Adventures too) and I had bought all the stuff to make them, BUT.... we ran out of peanut butter. So I have to wait until I get some more peanut butter (next Monday) before we can make them. I have some little blue Jordan Almonds to make the eggs. Yum.... Now I'm REALLY hungry... I need to forget that I have those little eggs hiding in my closet or they just might disappear....

[lea_lpz]

Well that makes sense because I was thinking raw noodles with peanut butter & chocolate, yuck! And cooked, how would that work to mimic materials in bird nest. Don't have time now, but will look at some other recipe options and let you know what we end up doing!

[Yodergoat]

A couple of years ago at our co-op we made edible nests in the preschool "cooking class." The teacher coated the chow mein noodles with melted chocolate chips (we used semi-sweet). Melt the chips gently, stir into the noodles to coat, pour onto wax paper and assemble the "nest." We used jelly beans for eggs.

They were so tasty that I bought some chow mein noodles and made them at home later that week!

They made a messy but lovely nest.

For the nest unit in K last year, we used what we had on hand and made a rice crispy treat nest with some chocolate eggs.

[lea_lpz]

I got the ingredients for nest and found the crunchy noodles and sounds tasty. We are set to do the nests today for day 3. Right now we are only doing MFW K 3 days a week over summer, so since we still have another week we might try the rice crispy treat recipe next week because that one sounds pretty yummy! Thanks for all the feedback! I try to do all the activities suggested but was not sure about this one until I realized it was crunchy fried noodles (yum!)

[lea_lpz]

We just eat the nests! We used equal parts Nutella with peanut butter instead of melting chocolate chips (easier) and then did use the fried chow mien noodles and shredded wheat, but I used a cookie scooper to make round vanilla ice cream eggs Yum!

[lea_lpz]

We did the nest as outlined in the tm, using the crispy, fried chow mein (canned, La Choy) for twigs and shredded wheat for dried grass, but instead of making mud with peanut butter and melted chocolate chips we used half peanut butter and half nutella. Seemed easier and tasted great! We used a cookie scooper to make vanilla ice cream "eggs". Really yummy!

[lea_lpz]

Also, had trouble finding enough read-alouds on this unit from my library. Funny, normally able to find most of the books on the book list. We try to do to read alouds for days 1-5 and then just our 1 book for book day. Anyway, I checked out The Busy Tree by Jennifer Ward. Really nice illustrations and info about trees, birds and their nests, as well as other animals who make their homes in trees. We also got Even an Octopus Needs a Home by Irene Kelly. Lots of detailed info and illustrations of a variety of animals homes, in addition to octopuses, like monkeys, beavers, wasps, ants, polar bears, frogs, and hermit crabs.

[bethinga]

This book has wonderful reviews! I'm getting it from the library for Nest unit!

The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon (Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12)

[HouseofCockrell]

Rather than use the animal homes sheet to cut and paste onto a poster this week, I had my ds cut out each picture. I then tacked them to a small bulletin board in our living room (our entire living and kitchen area do double duty as classroom space), placing each picture randomly around the board. I cut some lengths of yarn and my ds and I tacked one end of the yarn to a picture (say, dog) and then he had to find the matching picture (dog house) to tack the other end of the yarn to. It was a fun activity and very hands on for wiggly boys! He loved that he got to display his work where everyone could see it and I've seen him tracing the lines and reciting the different animal homes to himself several times since we finished the board! He also traced my handwriting to make a sign for his board that simply said, "Animal Homes." Simple, but fun and totally allowed him to take ownership of the whole project (he even said, "Daddy, look, I even made the sign!")!

[cbollin]

I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for an alternative for Chow Mein noodles in the edible nest recipe in the teacher manual. Hubby went to the store after work this morning and wasn't sure what I meant by chow mein noodles (and I am not sure they can be found in our little neighborhood anyway). The recipe says to shred large shredded wheat biscuits for grass, use chow mein noodles for twigs. And melt chocolate chips and peanut butter for the mud. I was just wondering if anything else would work for the twigs.

Thank you

Chow Mein noodles are crunchy things. they come in a can. ask grocery store customer service where they keep La Choy products. It's not a specialty product in most cities. It's canned goods. usually in "ethnic section" with asian foods. La Choy is the most common brand. many stores also have a store brand. ask store: where's the cans of stuff like chop suey.

you could use pretzels.

here are some previous discussions on this,
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=46&p=4374&hilit=mein#p4374
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=46&p=89416&hilit=mein#p89416
and apparently, your husband was not alone in wondering what chow mein noodles are
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=46&p=89416&hilit=mein#p89416

pretzels can work... you want something to crunch.

love to hear what you end up using! and how it goes. (and hearing what else other than pretzels worked... yummmy.. I'm hungry)

-crystal

[CaseyVG]

I think you could try FiberOne cereal, that is kind of stick like. Just the plain kind. Or you could use pretzel sticks!

[lea_lpz]

This made me laugh! I was also confused about this too! With the crispy fried noodles it tasted good. Crystal linked my example of using nutella for mud and scoops of vanilla ice cream for eggs. there are some other good variations, too, if you'd like to try something else. Overall a fun project!

[Julie in MN]

they come in a can.

Just for those who might still be looking, ours come in a clear plastic bag, so look for those, too. You might see a can of chow mein and down on the bottom shelf some bags or cans of noodles. Sometimes they are called "chow mein noodles."