Animal Forms for pre-schoolers – Bird family
Let the children team up as bird parents or eggs/chicks. Help the “bird parents” build a makeshift nest from twigs, grass, or pillows, whatever you have available. Then place the “eggs” into the nest, have the children kneel there and make themselves very small.
Instruct the bird parents to warm the eggs with their wings (arms) and to include all the eggs (stroke over their backs). Tell them to listen very carefully, maybe the chicks inside the eggs will start chirping at some point. Time to hatch!
Newly hatched chicks must stretch their bodies after all this time cramped up in an eggshell. And now it´s feeding time for busy bird parents! The chicks are chirping and demanding food. You could provide some peanuts, raisins, or the like, but children can play make-believe even without those helpers.
After some feeding rounds you should encourage the chicks to try their own wings and fly about with the parents.
To calm all the excited birdies down, announce nightfall, when chicks and parents come back to their nest and sleep cuddled up, warm and safe.
My kindergarten group couldn´t get enough of this idea and we had to play bird family several days in a row! CT