Fun Activities
Chapter 2: The Wild Side
(July 5 thru July 11)

Sense of Smell Game

(Younger Children)

Take five jars and cover them with material. Add some food to the jars and then cover the tops of the jars with tissues and secure them with a rubber band. It works best if you leave them for a couple of hours to let the smell fill the container. But, it still works quite well straight away. Give your child the chance to smell each container. Have them name the food inside each jar and then name an animal that eats that food.

Examples of food to use

• Grass –It is perfect because many animals (like horses, kangaroos, cows and deer) eat grass.
• Honey – Bees eat honey and bears like honey. Other animals that eat honey include badgers and raccoons.
• Banana – Who eats bananas? Monkeys do, of course – and so do bats, parrots and insects.
• Eucalyptus leaf – Perhaps you can use mint chewing gum to mimic the smell. These leaves are very strong-smelling, but most children will find this quite hard. How often do we go around smelling gum leaves? Possums, stick insects, and koalas do, though.
• Carrot – The smell of the carrot is much stronger when it’s grated. What eats carrots? Rabbits!
• Biscuits/Bread – You can use this to make your child think twice! They may say, "I eat biscuits and bread!"

Citrus Cup Bird Feeders

(Older Children and Teens)

What you will need

• Lemon, orange, grapefruit, or cantaloupe rinds -- cleaned out
• Yarn, garden twine, or baker’s twine
• Embroidery needle with hole large enough to fit the twine OR
• Tool like an awl or wooden kebab skewers to poke holes through rind
• Wild birdseed variety
• All natural peanut butter

Instructions

Cups

1. Clean out the halves of fruit until smooth.
2. After threading the needle and tying a knot at the end, push the embroidery needle through one side of the citrus rind straight through to the other side. (The adult can do the poking and the child can do the pulling through part.)
3. With the twine pulled all the way through, we pulled up the center to create a long loop for hanging. Cut and knot the other end on the outside of the rind.
4. Next, turn the rind a quarter turn and repeat with another length of twine--this time perpendicular to the first set of holes.
5. Pull the two loops evenly and knot together to secure everything.

Food

1. Take some bird seed and mix in a tablespoon of all-natural peanut butter for every half cup of seed to give it some ‘stick’. Example: 1 1/2 cups of seed with 3 tablespoons of peanut butter will fill 2 grapefruit cups and 2 lemon cups until heaping.
2. Hang outside in bushes or tree.

Images