For the birds!

Pin It Sensory bins turn you into a scavenger.  I was trained to find deals by my mother, hunting the elusive Marshall's bargain.  If only Marshall's had discounted rice, we'd be set.

My sensory bin this week was going to be St. Patty's theme.  Then I spent the whole weekend in the house with a baby who's temperature wouldn't drop below 102.  Monday we spent gardening, and I remembered today that I haven't done a single thing to prepare the St. Patty's Day Bin.  I needed something to keep my potentially-contagious-but-acting-fine toddler busy.

Enter last week's bargain.

These giant bird cakes were made for a giant feeder, and marked down from $8 to $0.50 at the hardware store.  I didn't buy the $15 holder, since I know the only thing eating out of it would be The Fattest Squirrel Ever.  (I watched him empty our suet feeder in under five minutes, and not by opening it up.)  Seriously, he's the size of our neighbor's woodchuck.

I tossed the whole block into a more shallow bin (check out our new table!  In the kitchen!  Next to the window!) and we talked about how these seeds (Zeez!) were food for birds, not for V., and we examined the bird chart while listening to birds outside the window.  My alterior motive was to have all this seed busted up so that we can put it into our bird feeder.

V. was interested in picking, pouring, and examining the seeds for a while. I tried sorting, but she's 1-months old, which meant the egg crate of sorted seeds turned into a really cool thing to shake after Mommy had filled it up.  (This prompted me to unearth my teaching materials in pursuit of my rain stick.)

Then I started to do dishes (so much more gets done when she isn't on the dining room table!) and she wandered off, only to come back with...

... her bird!  She was covering him with seed, saying "bir nack!  bir nack!" which, translated, means "bird snack."  

Aw!  Just when you wonder what they are taking from it all!

Lastly, we took all the fabric, thread, and yarn scraps I'd been saving (I told you, it makes you a scavenger...  this is starting to sound like hoarding but I swear it isn't!) and put them into the suet holder for the birds building nests.  (Unless Fat Squirrel has a use for those, too.)

And it looks so pretty!

I even had a chance to destroy my strainer work on the St. Patty's Day box.

Bling Bling!