Activity:         All In A Nest:  children become parents and baby birds, make shelter and feed their young.

Skills:              cooperation, empathy

Materials:       children's rest mats, plastic insects hidden around the room

Procedure:

1. Read: A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins or Bird's Nest by Barrie Watts.
2. Explain to the children that some of them will be parent birds and some will be babies inside an egg waiting to hatch.
3. Choose a child to be a mother bird and one to be a father bird. Children remaining will be baby birds. Everyone should wear a tag with his or her name on it.
4. Mother bird's and father bird's job is to build a nest (using the children's rest mats) so the mother bird can lay her eggs.
5. Eggs (with baby birds inside) curl up quietly in the nest waiting to hatch.
6. One by one each egg hatches and the baby bird inside starts peeping because it is hungry.
7. Now it is the parent bird's job to find food for their young.
8. As each baby bird is fed an insect, it then stops peeping.
9. The game is over when all is quiet or every baby has been fed.

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