I did this on my own the night before in case I butchered the carton. I cut triangles out of each of the four corners with a box cutter. I started them a couple of inches above the base because some said this offered stability. I happened to have some dowel rods on hand, so I made a couple slits and poked that through. Someone also suggested sanding the outside of the carton so that the paint would adhere better, so I ran a piece of sandpaper over the outside to scuff it up a bit and it was ready to go.
I had a variety of OLD acrylic paint on hand that Isaac used to decorate the outside. I really think sanding it a bit did help the paint "stick" a little better. He is such a serious and intense little guy! He is so fun to plan stuff for because he really gets into it!
Are those not the sweetest hands you've ever seen?!?
His finished product! He spent a lot of time getting it just right and he was so proud of it!
This was the tricky part! It was great for Isaac's fine motor skills, but super slow going and Mommy ended up helping quite a bit so that it didn't take us 5 hours to fill it. I poured seed into a bowl and we spooned it into the corner openings. We refilled it just a few days ago and Matt used a funnel and put it in the spout in the top. It was MUCH QUICKER this way! (But I think doing it the slow way the first time around was good for Isaac. He has taken a lot of ownership in the feeder and loves to check on it and see how much seed is left.)
I bent a wire hanger and poked a hole in one side and put it through the spout on the other side and we hung it outside. The birds LOVE it! We've had turtle doves, cardinals, blue jays, robins, crows and all kinds of other little birds visit our feeder. Silas loves it almost as much as Isaac and can spot a bird from a mile away!
Matt's Grandma Woods got Isaac a subscription to the Highlights High Five magazine for Christmas and it's great! Some of the activities are a little old for him yet, so I've been tucking the magazines away after we look at them so I can pull them back out when he's ready for them. One of the recent issues had a Memory game in it that were all different kinds of birds. I had totally forgotten about it, but when I thought of it I was excited to try to fit it into our theme day. I grabbed the magazine, cut out the pieces (and of course laminated them!) and as soon as Silas went down for a nap we played it over and over. Within a couple of days he recognized the difference between a Baby Kinglet and a Towhee (have you ever even heard of these birds?!? I sure hadn't!). 
I've done quite a bit of water stuff on our theme days with Noah's Ark and Jonah, plus it was freezing outside so we definitely weren't going to do any outdoor water stuff. I decided to keep this part super simple and just talk about it during bath time. I pulled out all the fish bath toys (and a couple ducks) and just let the boys free play with them while we talked about how God made the fish.
Isaac placed his foam fish up on the tub wall and told me "I make a ocean." :)
The tune and the idea for this song came from I can teach my child! Once again, I got impatient after Day 2 and kind of did my own thing, but our ideas turned out similar. The words I used with Isaac were only a little different than hers (she end her line with "fish alive" and I ended it with "fish that dive.")
I tried to "trick" Isaac into singing Day 5 for me while he held a fish and bird puzzle piece by propping the camera up on a stool and hoping he didn't notice. It didn't work very well because his head is completely cut off. Oh well! :)
Day 5, Day 5,
God made birds and fish that dive!
Day 5, Day 5,
God made birds and fish that dive!
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