On Friday, Mrs Murphy's Year 4 class made bird seed cakes to feed the garden birds.
Firstly, we had a good discussion on what food our native garden birds would like to eat and then we wrote a recipe as part of our literacy lesson. It was a great opportunity for us to use the 'time connectives' we have been learning about too!
Mrs Eadie helped us create the mix. Firstly, she melted the lard in the microwave. It turned from a solid white lump into a clear liquid. Secondly, we discussed what lard is, learning that it is the 'fat' of a pig that people used for cooking; making fried breads and pastry. We decided that it doesn't smell too good and we'd rather not use it anymore.
After that, we added a mix of different seeds including maize, oats and sunflower seeds. Then, we crushed biscuits and added those to the mix. Lastly we added breadcrumbs. And finally, we gave it a really good mix before allowing the mixture to set over break.
We used pine cones to make our bird feeders, which had a little hook attached. It works well because the little birds can hang off it while they eat.
We wore gloves and pressed the mixture into the pine cones, trying to fill all the little gaps - it was a messy job! Then, we labelled our pine cones and took them home to hang in our gardens.
We saw lots of birds feeding on the pine cones over the weekend including blue tits, starlings, coal tits and robins. We have some lovely photgraphs and drawings on our classroom wall now.
