How to Make a Counting & Color Activity for Your Bird Theme

With a few materials, you can make this bird color sorting and counting activity. Kids will love this hands-on math and fine motor activity.

What can you do with a bag of feathers?  I bought a great bag of bright, colorful feathers a couple of months ago at a Lakeshore Learning Store.  At the time, I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do with them, but I knew that I would come up with a great preschool craft idea or something.

Today I made this bird color sorting, counting activity, and fine motor activity with the feathers.  Here is how I did it.

Supplies

Here is what you will need to make your birds:

• colorful feathers
• small clothespin clips
• bright card stock or paper
• googly eyes
• hot glue gun with glue
• laminating film/machine (optional)

Putting it Together

I used an empty yogurt container as a pattern and traced a circle onto my paper.

After cutting out the circles, I added a triangle beak.  At this point, I laminated my birds.  I used regular paper to make my birds, so they were pretty flimsy before laminating.  If you make your birds from card stock, you may not need to laminate them.  I completed the birds by adding a little googly eye (see pictures below) to the front of the bird.

Next I got out my glue gun, clothespin clips and feathers.  I found a variety of sizes and colors of clothespin clips at a craft store.  The ones that I used are in between the standard size and the little bitty ones.  I liked that they were small enough to be hidden by the feathers.

I very carefully hot glued feathers to the top of the clothespin clips.  When you are done assembling your birds and feathers, kids can attach feathers to the bird to create a beautiful tail.  It’s a great fine motor activity!

Video Tutorial

Activity Ideas

Color Sorting:

Kids can use the birds and feathers as a color sorting activity.

Shape Activity:

Instead of making all of your birds from circles, you can make them from different shapes……circles, squares, rectangles, triangles…..

Counting:

The set becomes a hands-on counting activity when kids count each feather as it is attached to the bird.

Pattern Activity:

Children can use more than one color of feather to create patterned tails on the birds.

Composing an Decomposing Numbers:

They can practice composing and decomposing numbers as they explore different ways to create a number.  For example, to make a 5 feather tail they can use 4 purple and 1 green feather, 2 purple and 3 green feathers, 3 purple and 2 green feathers, etc.

Counting Game:

You can even make a counting dice game with the birds.    Prepare 10 feather clips for each bird.   Kids can take turns rolling a die or spinning a spinner to determine how many feathers to add to their bird.  The first person to attach all feathers to his or her bird is the winner.

I would love to hear how you use this bird color sorting and counting activity with your kids.

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More Bird-Themed Activities in the Store

If you are interested in additional hands-on learning activities, check out the following resources in my store.