Bird Beaks

Bird Beaks - What can you eat?

• Birds by Kevin Henkes read-aloud video (optional)
• Images of bird beaks
• A spoon
• A pair of tweezers
• A cup
• An empty egg carton
• Items to represent food such as:
  • Grains of rice (tiny seeds)
  • Sunflower seeds (small seeds)
  • Dry beans (larger seeds)
  • A small amount of cooked spaghetti (worms)
  • Raisins (small insects)
  • You could also try corn kernels, pumpkin seeds, gummy worms, etc
• An adult to play with you

What to do:

1. Look at the different images of bird beaks.  Are all the beaks the same? In what ways are they similar?  Different?
2. What kinds of foods do you think these birds might eat?
3. Put some of the different ‘bird food’ into the cells of your egg carton, one type per cell.  It’s ok if you don’t fill the whole egg carton
4. Choose a ‘beak’ to start with (either the spoon or the tweezers)
5. Remember, birds don’t have hands!  See if you can use only your pretend beak to pick up a piece of food and place it in your cup.
6. Were you able to pick up every type of food using your spoon?  The pair of tweezers? Do you think birds are able to eat every kind of food with the beak they have, or not?
7. What was the hardest kind of food to pick up?  The easiest?
8. Which pretend beak did you like the best and why?
9. If you want, you can use other tools as pretend beaks, such as chopsticks, pliers, a bigger spoon, smaller tweezers, etc.  Get creative and have fun!

Images of Bird Beaks

Black-capped Chickadee	Great Blue Heron
American Robin	Mallard Duck

Images from Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website.  Check it out to learn more about these amazing birds!