All about birds art mini camp day 3

 This final day of camp was a little chaotic. We had to start lots of projects at the same time in order to get them to dry and be able to complete them. We started today by reviewing some of the facts and information about birds and nesting birds in Texas. We talked about the packet we would make for the birds to use in building nests. We also reviewed examples of dozens of gourd birdhouses before they began their projects. The campers selected the colors that they wanted to use to paint their birdhouses. There were a variety of different sizes and shapes of gourds that my friend Shelley gave us for this camp. We were able to utilize the tops of egg cartons in order to not get paint all over our drawings on the table. Every camper did their own take on what they thought would attract birds to their birdhouse.

We did a crushed eggshell base for a hummingbird painting. Each of the students selected a drawing of a hummingbird, cut it out, and pasted it to a piece of foam core board. We then covered the picture with tacky glue and they pressed on eggshells so that they would have a crackled surface. We set this aside to dry then colored them with bright colored markers. This project did not turn out as well as I expected but the campers were happy.
We also covered our surface for the scratch out using either crayons or dark-colored oil pastels. To complete the project they scratched out what looked like twigs for the nest all around the outside and then used a palette knife to scrape out 3 to 5 eggs inside the nest. They then colored the eggs with blue or pink pastel.

At every point the campers wanted to get back and finish painting their birdhouses. The idea of letting them air dry if there was a hair dryer available was not an acceptable option.
The two remaining projects were first to create a nesting materials bag from the mesh vegetable bags that I've been collecting filled with short pieces of yarn and string. Each end was secured with twist ties so it can be refill and attached a pipe cleaner on the end so it could be hung out for the birds.

The final project was to create birdseed reefs or bird food wreaths for the students to hang out in their yards at home. For this we again follow the directions I used to create these in January. I found this on Pinterest and it worked out quite well. This time we used fluted yogurt cups as our container. I had lots of help mixing up the ingredients much like a science project and then the students helped each other fill their cups, pressed the mixture in tightly, and made a hole using a pencil so that it could be hung on a ribbon.
Lastly they removed all of the items from their three ring binder and transfer them to the gray folder that they had decorated during the week. We punched extra holes along the edges so that they could hang the bookmark from Jeanette Johnson and other items like the nest bag and note bird. When we do this again we will definitely include constructing a pocket on both the inside front and back of the folder so that loose items can be more easily secured.

bird camp day 3
Book list for the week:
1. Charming Handmade Clay crafts
2. Creative Stamping in Polymer Clay
3. Draw 50 birds
4. Essential origami
5. Hummingbirds: hovering in nature
6. Making books that fly, fold, wrap, hide, pop up, twist, and turn:
books for 
7. Paper Quilling for the First Time
8. Quilling for Scrapbooks & Cards

1. Backyard birds of Texas: how to identify and attract the top 25 birds
2. The birds of Texas
3. The book of North American owls
4. Hawks
5. Pink!