Make a Bird Feeder with Your Kids

As some of you know, I have a small segment on Good Morning Oklahoma on Tuesdays. It’s only about a minute, so if you go to pour yourself some more coffee, you miss it.

I sometimes look for fun projects to do with kids, and I found this cool bird feeder idea online. There are variations, but this one seemed easy enough for me to do with my limited crafting skills. It’s also a good way to recycle a plastic bottle.

SUPPLIES

• 1-litre plastic bottle, washed
• x acto knife
• Black marker
• Eye Screw
• Two wooden cooking spoons
• String to hang the feeder
• Birdseed

HOW TO MAKE THE BIRD FEEDER

To make the holes that the spoons go through: With the Sharpie, draw a circle about half-an-inch in diameter on the bottle, a couple of inches up from the bottom. Directly opposite of the circle, make an asterisk with the Sharpie.  Turn the bottle about halfway around and draw a circle about four inches up from the bottom of the bottle. Draw an asterisk directly across from this circle.

Using the x acto knife, cut the circles out. Mine were not very precise, but it doesn’t matter. Cut the asterisks with the knife as well. The larger holes will allow the birdseed to come out onto the spoon. The asterisk “holes” will hold the spoon handles tightly in place.

Push the end of the wooden spoon through the bigger hole and then through the asterisk hole. Do the same with the other holes.

To make the hanger at the top: Screw the eye screw into the top of the lid.

Fill the bird feeder with birdseed, using a funnel, or as I did on TV, you can make your own funnel with a piece of paper or construction paper. You will also see that I pour birdseed all over the counter in KTUL’s kitchen set, which is really embarrassing. Maybe it’s a good idea to pour the birdseed into the bottle outside, because some of it will come out of the two big holes.

Put the top back on the bottle and put a length of twine, a shoestring or other sturdy string through the eye screw and tie your bird feeder to a tree.

The food will come out of the holes onto the spoons. I found that it’s not a perfect system, but it does work.

I’ll let you know if I any birds start using it.