Snow Birds

In some circles "Snow Birds" refers to humans who flee the snow to warmer places, a lot like birds migrating south for the winter. Some birds do stay through the snow such chickadees, jays, cardinals, and woodpeckers . How do they survive the cold winter? Wonderopolis shares their survival techniques.

This art activity is a great extension to a winter bird watching excursion and a discussion on how birds stay warm during the winter.

You will need: 
colored construction paper
white paper
black and/or brown oil pastels or crayons
white oil or white paint
paint brush or cotton swab
scissors
glue
tempera or water color paints

Begin by deciding the color of the bird OR let creativity rather than science be the focus and enjoy painting with any and all colors, focusing on covering the white space of the page in either case. Both tempera and watercolors will work.

Covering most of the paper helps, but this painting still worked well for creating a Steller's Jay

Cut shapes to create a bird: body, head, wing and beak

Glue the shapes into a bird onto your colored paper.

Cut strips of white paper for the aspen trees and glue on paper.

Draw black lines and dots on aspen trunks along with leafless branches.

Be sure your bird has somewhere to perch. We added a branch.

Draw eyes and feet.
Create falling snow by drawing with white oil pastels or using drops of white paint.

Wishing for snow