If you are looking for a great project to do with your kids at home or at school, why not make a birdhouse?! Putting together a bird house can be a great way to bond and spend time with your own kids or your students if you are a school shop teacher. While many people opt to build their bird houses completely on their own, many people decide to use wood birdhouse kits. These birdhouse kits can be a great tool for the beginner wood workers of all ages. All the pieces and instructions you need are included for an error proof build.

For the kids who are interested in making their own wood bird houses, there is even kids birdhouse kits especially designed for the little wood working hands. A great thing about these bird house kits designed for children is that they are extremely cheap.

Typical wooden birdhouse kits will include the project plans, wood for the bird house and screws or nails to secure your bird house together. You can opt to use glues or pastes if you prefer on your bird house as well. The plans and instructions included in your bird house kit are really easy to follow and the wood pieces are already the exact size they need to be. If you are building a bird house on your own and with your own wood, you have to cut and size the wood to the exact size you need. That can turn into a lot of extra work and if you are a teacher in class you simply do not have the time to waste. This is why getting wood birdhouse kits is becoming such a popular and convenient activity to do.

Once you have mastered the art of making a basic bird house, then you can move onto more advanced and larger projects. A bird house is most commonly known to be a small housing structure, but you can make them as large and extravagant as you want. Your bird house could transform from a small house in the tree, to a large bird castle held up by a pole. The great thing about bird houses is that no matter how large you want the structure, you can find birdhouse kits to fit the plans you have in mind.

Birdhouse projects are not only educational, but they can be very fun for both kids and adults. If assembling the bird house yourself is not up your alley, you can also buy a pre assembled bird house and paint it as a fun activity for you and your children. It can also be a great way to relax.

There are a ton of times and places where making a bird house can be a fun way to occupy the kids. Putting together a bird house can be a great way for many groups to learn team building exercises as well. Girl scouts, boy scouts, employee parties, day care activities and even training camps can be great examples of how building a bird house can improve communication. If you are looking for a great project or maybe even a new hobby to take up, building bird houses can fill that void. Bird house kits can be found online right here for great prices to get your new hobby or project started.

There wasn’t a kid in my neighborhood that did not have classic wooden toys that are still around today. Log cabins, building blocks, and those popular wooden work benches for boys were all toys you could find in my neighborhood. These wooden toys create a lifetime of fun because of their durability and the fact that they are always fun in any generation.

Traditional wooden toys that even my grandparents were playing with are still being bought and used for babies being born in today’s world. One of my personal favorite wooden toys was the log cabin kits. These kits would let you build all different sized cabins and then you could use that cabin with other toys like Barbie and Polly Pockets. If you never got to play with things like Lincoln Logs you were definitely missing out! These kits came with an assortment of miniature wooden logs that had notches in the two ends so the logs could be stacked one on top off the other.

These wooden toys were invented back in 1916 but they weren’t mass produced to the public until about 1918. While most people assume these classic toys were named after former president, Abraham Lincoln, they were actually named after the inventor’s father’s middle name! Inventor, John L. Wright, got the design of the Lincoln Logs by looking at an earthquake proof basement structure in Tokyo. All the way up until about 1970 all of the logs included in the kits were wood, but that soon changed. Most manufacturers switched over to plastic because it was cheaper but there are just a few manufacturers left that only produce wooden logs.

Educational wooden toys were also popular at my childhood day care and pediatrician’s office. While at day care I would play with the wooden tic tac toe board, and another wooden toy that had you match up wooden shape pieces into shapes set into a wooden block. Building blocks were also considered a type of educational toy so those were always around too. The building blocks were a little cooler than the Lincoln Logs simply because you weren’t restricted to one or two designs. You could make homes, castles, bridges and many other things with the building blocks.

If you do want the log cabin kits that will give you a bit more design room, there are some kits out there for you. These kits will let you build a wide variety of log homes and even Appalachian homes as well. These wooden log home kits can be found mostly online but you may be able to find some classic wooden toys at your local retailers. However, to get the best selection you might want to start looking online for these kits and toys.

You can even make your own wooden toys right at home if you want. Making your own building blocks or maybe even guitars will help get your family doing something together. If you enjoy puzzles you can even make a medium to large sized jig saw puzzle too. There are so many wooden toy options that you can make right from your own garage or home. How about a couple cars, a wooden rocking horse, alphabet building blocks or even your own stringed wooden guitar for your first wooden toy building project? Whether you decide to buy your toys made of wood, or make them yourself, you can be sure and find the perfect fit. You will learn the value that these classic wood toys have and how they provide a lifetime of fun.

The first constructed settler’s cabin goes all the way back to the early 1800’s in the East Charlotte area of Vermont. American settlers, trappers and loggers all constructed these types of structures to use as temporary homes while on their journey across the frontier. The first of these homes that were constructed were made of beech and pine timbers and were hand hewn. There are even areas of the country where the history of these cabins dates around the 1750s!

The structure of these cabins was not meant to last more than three winters. A settler’s cabin was only designed to fit a pioneer’s family through the winter, in between moving across the country to another area. It almost looked like the settlers threw some logs and sticks together to make a shelter. These cabins would resemble more of an overnight structure to the outdoors adventurist today. Some of the earliest cabins from the 1800’s were not photographed so the only documentation is by descriptions passed down from ancestors.

The design of the early settler’s cabin was French Canadian and a few of some late 1800 cabins are still standing today in certain areas. Iowa, Vermont, and New York are just a couple of the places you can visit and tour actual cabins that were built by people on the Wild West movement. When you think about the people and events that occurred around the settler’s cabin, it is amazing how much history they store.

You could find these cabins in the Midwest and East Coast but the true History of the settler’s cabin is unknown. There are dozens of countries, provinces, and states that lay claim to the creation of the cabins but since there was no documentation until the early 1900’s, it is hard to say who coins the creation. The outdoor structure itself most likely dates back to the time of American Indians and even cave men! The only difference in these structures and settler’s cabins is that the cabins were only intended for very short use.

There is a Settler’s Cabin Park in Pennsylvania where you can experience the closest thing to the pioneer’s life back in the earlier days. Actual archeologist from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History have even visited this park and verified all of the cabins dating back to the 1780’s. The history is really rich here and it is one of the few places you can see the cabins and how they were set up when the settlers were using them.

To experience how life really was when this housing was the only option you can take advantage of a cool tour called the Burning Settler’s Cabin. This little train ride will take you back to a time where Indians were either with you or against you, and in this demonstration they were obviously against the pioneer.  The cabin appears to be engulfed in flames but it is actually set up and safely controlled. After you get off the train, you can even walk around inside of the burning cabin to see how a settlers home would have looked like for the frontier traveler.

Unfortunately, because records were so poorly kept in the earlier days it is hard to correctly date the settler’s cabin and the exact tools and techniques they used to build them. We can only take what has been passed down through the generations to help recreate the structures and the history they carry along with them. For photos of some early American settler’s cabins you can do a quick search on the internet.

If you have children you know the worry of how the world will be when they get older. By changing the way we do things today, we could actually make the world a better place for our children tomorrow. As cliché as that sounds, it is simply the truth and toy companies around the world have recognized this. Buying green toys for your children or grandchildren to play with is a great way to make a stand in creating a better world.

So what makes a toy a green toy? Simply put, the toys are made from recycled materials. Recycled plastic like milk jugs can be a great way to create plastic building block sets, or play tool sets. There are literally hundreds of toys that can be manufactured by recycled materials, and luckily many toy companies are putting forth the effort now. One of the most timeless toys still on the market is log cabin toys and building kits. Believe it or not, these toys were almost always made with real wood which took its toll on the environment. Now, with the world recognizing the difference that going green can make, these toys are joining the fight.

Choosing Log cabin toys made from recycled, or reclaimed wood, is a great way to do your part in helping the environment. Just because you buy or make eco friendly toys doesn’t mean you’re a tree hugger. In fact, it is respectable to show that you care about saving the environment, even if it is by doing something as small as buying a green toy. The log cabin sets are not the only wooden toys to go green though. Some similar products like tree house building kits, and even Lincoln Log products are all starting to go green.

Because “green” log cabin toys are made with recycled wood, your color options may be limited. The assembled kits are a more authentic looking natural wood log cabin. The environment also benefits when the logs are left unfinished without any paint or varnish. This not only means no lead or other chemical exposure for the children but also for the Earth. Plus, with the prices for these log cabin kits at only around $20, there isn’t any reason not to go for the greener version. You’re saving money, and the environment.

The recycled and reclaimed wood is not the only way these toys are going green. By making the products in Canada and using local drivers and delivery, the companies cut down on costs and carbon emissions. If companies like toy manufacturers are realizing the need to go green, then hopefully others will follow. Doing our part to make the world a better place for our children and their children can improve everyone’s life.

You can find a wide variety of green toys on the market now. Toys like Frisbees, trucks, jump ropes and even sand box play sets are being made with recycled materials collected from all over the world. We will make the world a better place, one toy at a time.