Mini Birdhouses

Wonderful day of building mini birdhouses with my favorite 3 yr old and 5 yr old!!  It was a super simple, cheap and fun activity we all loved and we even squeezed in some lessons on colors, birds, and building skills.  We have pretty much exhausted ourselves on the pool and other outside activities the past few days........... combine that with visiting family, friends and the 4th and we were all pretty much done.  I was looking for a way to keep them entertained calmly inside for the day.  Mission accomplished!!

You can find pretty nice build your own birdhouse kits from Wal-Mart to Hobby Lobby within the price range of $10-$20.  Or you can buy some wood and commence to building your own but I'm not that good.  I happened upon these mini birdhouses in the clearance bin at Wal-Mart, they were only $3 so of course I couldn't pass them up.

The kit included all of the above so we were good to go:-) Wood pieces, glue, paint, brush, sandpaper and stickers for decorating.

The gluing process was epically boring for them because it took a little bit and I had to help with positioning, holding, etc.  But they did great and stuck with it!!

After letting them dry for about 30 minutes the boys came back and sanded them so they were ready to paint.

They were super excited to paint and spent a lot of time achieving perfection.  Note the looks of extreme concentration on their faces!!

Viola!! Finished products (they opted not to put stickers on them because they didn't want to make the birds sick).  This activity entertained us for about 4 hours with small breaks in between certain steps for drying and a short lunch.  We discussed colors, shapes, sandpaper, and lots of details about birds from different kinds to what they can and can not eat.....all for $6!!  Not a bad day!!