Edible Bird Nest for Reading Comprehension and Sequencing Skills

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Why do most birds build nests? Where do most birds lay their eggs? How do most birds protect their young?

Materials:

• Birds by Jane Werner Watson
• Plates and plastic knives
• Small mixing bowl
• A mixing spoon
• Napkins
• Wet wipes or water & paper towels
• Copy of recipe written on a large sheet of paper:
• Small or varied sized pretzels
• Flaked coconut
• Green food coloring (optional)
• Chocolate Icing
• Jellybeans or any other egg shaped candies

Steps:

1. Read the book Birds by Jane Werner Watson, or any other informational book on birds
2. Ask your children what they know about birds and what they would like to find out about birds. Birds is a non-fiction rhyming book so you can listen for the rhyming words, too.
3. Ask, “Have you ever seen a bird’s nest?” If you have one, show it and explain that all birds do not build nests, but most birds do.
4. Ask, “Why do birds build nests?’ They will be able to answer based on the book.
5. Ask them if they can follow some of the steps in the book that birds use to build a nest? Show them the ingredients and ask them how they could create a nest like a bird does from them?
6. Let them pretend to be a bird as they make “Bird Nest Treats.”
7. Show them the recipe and read it together.
8. Place flaked coconut into mixing bowl, add a few drops of green food coloring and mix well. The colored coconut represents grass.
9. Then give your child the pretzel sticks which represent twigs and chocolate icing with represents mud.
10. They can practice trying to build a bird nest using the pretzel sticks and chocolate icing.
11. Once they have assembled the nest, you can give them a few jellybeans to put in so it looks like bird eggs.
12. Eat!

Recipe Book

1. Make a recipe book together.
2. Have them write what they did “first”, “next” and “then”. If they can’t write yet, pre-write and print out the steps so they can cut the steps out and glue them in the proper order. Ordering or sequencing steps in a process is an important skill in general but it is an essential literacy skill.
3. After “writing” the steps they can illustrate the process.