Every bird needs a home, and this deluxe house has everything one needs – doors, windows, a chimney, flowers, and a white picket fence. Best of all, it’s a HAT!

We read Brimsby’s Hats by Andrew Prahin (Simon & Schuster, 2014). Brimsby the hatmaker lives in a quiet cottage. His life is full of making hats and chatting with his best friend over tea. But one morning, his friend announces that he’s off to pursue adventures on the high seas, and Brimsby becomes very lonely. Trudging through the snow on a solitary walk, he finds some birds who might make good friends. Unfortunately, they’re too busy shoveling snow out of their nests to chat. That gives Brimsby a tremendous idea. He eagerly sets to work, making hat houses for all the birds. Once the hat houses are in place, there’s no more snow shoveling, no more freezing nights, and the birds are free to visit their new friend!

You’ll need:

• 1 plastic top hat (I buy mine from Oriental Trading Company)
• A selection of construction paper and/or patterned paper
• 1 hat house fence template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
• 1 hat house windows, door, welcome mat template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
• Green tissue paper
• 1 hat house flowers template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
• 5 pipe cleaners
• 1 toilet paper tube
• 1 small feather
• Scissors and tape for construction
• Markers for decorating
• Hot glue

This is an incredibly easy project that only involves a few steps:

1. Circle the crown of the hat with construction paper and/or patterned paper
2. Create a hatband using the white picket fences from the template
3. Cut, color, and attach the windows, door, and welcome mat from the template
4. Add tissue paper shrubs (hot glue is best when attaching these to the hat)
5. Attach flowers from the template to pipe cleaner stems, then tape them to the hat

If you’d like a chimney, roll a piece of construction paper into a 4″ tube, cut three, 1″ tabs in the bottom, spread the tabs, and attach them to the top of hat using tape or hot glue.

Now for the bird! Wrap a toilet paper tube in white construction paper. Then, wrap another color of construction paper three-quarters of the way around the bird, thus creating a white tummy. Add wings, eyes, and a beak (our beak was a snippet of self-adhesive foam). Tape a small feather to the top of the tube.

Introduce the bird to its new home (if the hats are a little big, stuff them with tissue paper)!