Don't forget Rudolph!

Instead of (or as well as) leaving a carrot for Rudolph, sprinkle some (uncooked) porridge oats in the garden. Any he leaves will be enjoyed by the birds! 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Treat your robin!

Treat your local robin with a dish of crumble pastry maggots.

·         Put 85g flour into a bowl

·         Mix in 30g lard with the tips of your fingers

·         Rub the dry mixture into little maggot-shaped pieces

·         Sprinkle the maggots around bushes and flowerbeds

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

 

Make a sock garden!

Make a sock garden:

·         Pull on an old sock over one of your shoes/boots.

·         Go for a walk through an area of long grass, rough grazing land, moorland or similar.

·         When you get home plant the sock in the garden or in a large pot of compost and leave it outside.

·         Water it in dry weather.

Some seeds have hooks which attach themselves onto animals’ coats. This helps to spread them away from the parent plant. Seeds that use this method will have attached themselves to your sock. Once planted they should germinate and grow.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Be warm, yet cool!

 

Put an extra jumper on and turn your thermostat down by 1^oC. Not only will you be helping to fight climate change - you'll save money, too!
Visit http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Take-action/Start-saving-money for more green energy advice.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Listen very carefully....

Put on warm clothes, go outside, close your eyes and listen for 5 minutes. What can you hear?

 How many sounds can you hear that are not made by people or machines?

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Food miles

Use an atlas or globe to locate where the items in your shopping have come from. Estimate how many food miles your shop contains. Try using a food miles calculator website such as http://www.organiclinker.com/food-miles.cfm Challenge yourself to reduce the mileage next time.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make a seed picture

 

Make a Christmas seed picture and hang it outside for the birds.

·         Draw a picture with a pencil on a flat piece of wood

·         Paint over the pencil lines with soft lard or vegetable fat

·         Sprinkle bird seed over the lard to complete your seed picture.

·         Shake off the excess seed.

·         Put your picture out on a fine day in the open.

·         Watch the birds eat your artwork!

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Nature's treasure

 

Go on a winter ‘treasure hunt’ safari in your garden or park or in the countryside – can you find the following natural (not manmade) items?

Look for something:

·         noisy;

·         prickly;

·          small and brown;

·         hairy;

·         hard and smooth;

·          fluffy;

·         with more than two legs;

·         with wings that isn’t a bird;

·         that lives in water.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Support your local farmers

Make a delicious meal using only local ingredients.
You can find local food producers as well as recipes using seasonal produce at http://www.bigbarn.co.uk

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Get to know your trees

Visit your local park or forest with a friend – take paper and crayons and make some bark rubbings. Look at all the different patterns. Give the images to your friend. Can they match the images to the tree species from whence they came?

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Track detective

Spread some damp sand onto a path, patio or lawn. Leave it overnight then take a look the next day to see if there are any footprints to tell you who has visited during the night!

 

 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make a cake for the birds

Make a small hole in the bottom of a clean empty yoghurt pot.

Thread string through the hole and tie a knot on the inside.

Leave enough string to tie the pot to a tree or similar.

Bring some lard or other fat to room temperature (but don’t melt it) in a mixing bowl.  Cut it into small pieces.

Add grated cheese, raisins, bird seed and peanuts to the bowl and mix it into the fat with your fingertips.

Squeeze the mixture until the fat holds it together.

Fill the pot with the mixture and put in the fridge to set.

Hang the bird cake from a tree or birdtable.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make yourself a nice cup of tea (or mulled wine perhaps?). Settle in a comfy armchair with a seed catalogue. Enjoy choosing some pollinator-friendly plants to grow in your garden, balcony or windowbox next year.
You can find lots of information about pollinator-friendly plants on the RHS website at http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Sustainable-gardening/pdfs/RHS_Pollinators_PlantList 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Welcome wildlife into your garden

Sign up to the RSPB ‘Homes for Wildife’ scheme to get lots of ideas for ways in which you can make your home and garden more wildlife friendly. You do not have to be an RSPB member to do this. http://www.rspb.org.uk/hfw

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Give the birds a drink

 

Make sure there is clean water available for wild birds to drink and bathe in. This can be an even more urgent need than food, especially in freezing weather. You don’t need to spend a fortune on buying a bird bath. A simple plant saucer with a stone in the middle will do the job very well.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Home Sweet Home

 

Put up a bird box. Birds start investigating potential nest sites very early so the sooner they are in place, the better. For advice on building, siting and cleaning nest boxes visit the RSPB website http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/nestboxes/smallbirds/index.aspx

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Keep a record

 

Get yourself a notebook and start keeping a nature diary. Note the natural day to day events that you see (e.g. when you see the first swallows) and your diary will soon become an interesting record. Sharing your records with wildlife organisations can be a powerful way of building up a broader picture of what is happening in nature. As a starting point, the Natural History Museum has a list of current surveys that you could become involved with: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/british-natural-history/uk-biodiversity-portal/get-involved/citizen-science-projects/index.html 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Do the washing up!

Clean and wash your bird feeders, bird table and bird bath. Ideally, use a 5% disinfectant solution. Good hygiene can help to prevent the wild birds that visit your garden from catching diseases.  

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Snug as a bug!

Make a bug hotel.

Collect dried sticks, grasses, leaves, bits of bamboo cane, old logs and even broken bricks.

Pile them up in an undisturbed corner of the garden.

Invertebrates of all sorts will soon make their homes in your architectural masterpiece.

You can find instructions for a very simple bug hotel on Buglife's website at http://www.buglife.org.uk/Resources/Buglife/Create%20a%20bug%20hotel%202008%20pdf%20for%20web%20and%20colour%20print.pdf 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Take a nature walk

 

Go for a Nature Walk. If you have children or grandchildren take them with you and share the fun of appreciating nature.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Watch the birds

Practice for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch (see http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch for details) by watching the birds in your garden or park for an hour. Use a bird book to help you identify the species that you see.

 

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Light a candle

Take a stand a stand against climate change and support the largest environmental event in history by signing up to WWF’s annual ‘Earth Hour’ event – see www.earthhour.org for more information. You could even practise and get into the Christmas mood at the same time by switching off all your lights for an hour and relaxing by candlelight.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!

Make a Christmas wreath

Make a Christmas wreath for the birds and hang it in the garden or on the balcony.

 

 

Making one couldn’t be simpler;

• Thread monkey nuts onto a length of flexible garden wire.
• Bend the wire into a circle and twist the ends together, leaving one end slightly longer - make this into a loop from which to hang the wreath.
• Using raffia or kitchen string tie a small bunch of seed heads (e.g. teasel) and/or berries to the top of the wreath.
• Hang the wreath somewhere safe from cats.

Did you try today’s activity? Please tell us by commenting below, emailing education@isleofwightzoo.com or sending us a message via Facebook or Twitter. We’d love to see some pictures, too!