During the winter months, one of the topics we cover during our environmental education activities is feeding birds in winter. Because many mistakes are often made when feeding birds – placing feeders in unsuitable locations where cats can reach them, or choosing inappropriate food such as bread – we treat this subject with the utmost seriousness. However, when your audience consists of preschool children, the way you convey this information is completely different. The whole activity revolves around play, sparking curiosity, and maintaining their attention through simple hands-on tasks that help them intuitively understand how they can care for the birds around them.

Once we know all the information needed to feed birds properly, we move on to the children’s favourite part: the practical one. Using pine cones, string, ivy, seeds and suet, we turn the work table into a small creative workshop, where each child puts their skills to work to prepare a winter treat for the birds.

In less than an hour, we learned the correct principles of feeding birds, created feeders from easily available materials, and became aware of how important it is to care for the species around us. In this way, not only can we observe the birds visiting near our homes, but we also take responsibility for looking after our environment.