During the long winter months, I can always count on some festive birds to be a bright spot against the white snow. This gorgeous kids’ art project reinforces cutting, painting and gluing skills while refining students’ fine motor skills!
Getting the Winter Bird Art Ready
To prep this cute winter bird art, I gathered supplies for each student:
One 9″ x 12″ piece of blue construction for the background
One 4″ x 4″ piece of red (or blue) construction paper for the bird
Various shades of green construction paper for the pine tree branches
A small piece of white paper
Pencil
Scissors
Feathers (blue or red to match the paper)
Glue sponges
White paint
Paintbrush
Creating the Pine Branches
First, I explained that pine trees are different from other trees because the pine branches have needles instead of leaves and therefore do not lose their needles in the winter.
I had each child select one light green and one dark green piece of construction paper.
We cut the paper into thin, short strips and used two dark green strips to create the main branch.
Then we gently tapped each green strip onto the glue sponge and placed it on the blue background paper.
I encouraged kids to overlap different shades of green needles off of the main branch as they glued down each piece.
Creating the Winter Birds
I helped the children trace a bird shape on the red construction paper using the template (below).
Students cut out the bird and glued it down on the branch. The winter bird art was really starting to come together now!
After the bird was in place, we carefully cut a circle out of white paper to create the eye, glued it onto the paper and added a black dot in the middle of the circle.
To make the bird’s wing, the children choose feathers the same color as the paper and glued it down along either side of the bird.
For added interest, some students cut a fringe at the edge of the tail to represent even more feathers.
Creating the Snow
With a small paintbrush and white tempera paint, students gently added dots to represent falling snowflakes.
Some children also painted the beak of the bird white!
After it dried overnight, we hung the colorful artwork on our bulletin board for a fun and seasonal look!
