Bird Play Dough Kit

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We are loving developing our 12 Months of Classroom Play Dough, and this Bird Play Dough Kit can work for any season that the kids are interested in birds. I find that my kids are most interested in observing birds in spring or fall since we get to watch the migration and reappearance of our feathered friends during those seasons. (The summer is hit or miss.)

Last year, my kids and I did a b is for birds unit study and attempted making play dough birds and clay nests… it was definitely a sensory experience! I still have clay on the ceiling in my bathroom from the kids shaking their hands to clean them off.

This year, I thought we’d be more open-ended with this easy classroom-sized play dough kit. You can incorporate any materials that work for the theme, and switch them out based on the kids’ responses to the materials. Of course, the play dough and all materials are stored in my giant Ikea sectioned container, which I do all of my classroom-sized play dough kits in. You can also search snap lid containers on Amazon and find what would work best for you size wise.

Making a Bird Play Dough Kit

First, gather your materials:

• Brown play dough (I used our chocolate play dough recipe.)
• White play dough
• Brown packaging strips
• Styrofoam robin’s eggs
• Neutral-colored feathers
• Safari Bird Tubes (Backyard Birds and Tropical)

This play dough kit was intentionally open-ended, allowing children to create various items related to (or representing) birds – or completely going in a different direction and ignoring the presence of the birds if they wished.

You could alternatively use different colors of play dough, bird seed, etc.

We started off making birds nests with the paper shreds and chocolate play dough which was amazing for sensory stimulation (chocolate scent and that contrast between smooth, squishy play dough and rough, crinkly paper).

We carefully counted out three robin’s eggs to place in our nest and had to use our finger to push them securely into the play dough.

And, of course, we added some parent birds to take care of those eggs.

Some children decided to make their own play dough birds with beaks and soft, pretty wings.

And one child even decided to make some bird poop! (And shared a funny story about a bird pooping on Daddy’s hand which got all of the kids talking about related incidents in their own lives…)

Here’s a few of the other ways they played:

• brushing the soft feathers on their hands
• comparing the rough paper to the soft feathers
• squishing and rolling the play dough, developing hand strength
• acting out scenarios with the bird figurines
• practicing bird noises and calls
• counting the bird eggs

The kids had a wonderful time playing with this bird play dough kit, and it was really cool to see them share their observations of birds using descriptive language without any prompting.

Check out more of our play dough kits here!

For more bird-related fun, check out my kid-made bird feeder wreath or these must-have penguin books for kids.

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Jennifer

Jennifer Tammy is a trained psychologist and single mom who runs a Montessori preschool out of her home in order to stay home full-time with her daughter, Miss G. Every day she shares easy recipes, parenting inspiration, and hands-on learning ideas on her blog, Sugar, Spice, and Glitter.

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