Curious George Spring Special on PBS Earth Day

This Earth Day, Monday, April 22, PBS KIDS will air a new CURIOUS GEORGE special: CURIOUS GEORGE SWINGS INTO SPRING. (Check local listings for times. It will re-air Friday and is now available on DVD .)

Courtesy of ® & © 2013 Universal Studios and/or HMH. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PBS KIDS ® Public Broadcasting Service.

PBS Kids sent us a screener kit with the movie and spring crafts to check out. We watched the movie as a family last weekend and the kids, including my 2-year-old, loved it.  The story takes off with Curious George having spring fever at the park, then he tries to get his dog friend Hundley to catch the fever but has a difficult time doing it. They explore canoe rides, country animals and more but it takes a hot air balloon to help Hundley catch spring fever.
The music is catchy and our favorite song was “We are the Wiener Dogs.” The movie has us excited for spring but we have to wait a few more weeks here in Utah. It is still snowing off and on.  In the mean time, we can do some fun crafts to get ready for spring.
SPRING CRAFTS:

PBS sent us some pencils and this PINWHEEL TEMPLATE (you can print one too) so the kids could color and create their own pinwheels.

Here is one my son made:

PBS also sent us supplies to create a bird feeder. You can get instructions from PBS here: PLASTIC BOTTLE BIRD FEEDER

CRAFT NOT RECOMMENDED TO TRY AT HOME:
They actually only sent us the bird seed and chop sticks for this craft. We didn’t have a 2-liter bottle so we had to get one at the store this week. That wasn’t the problem with this craft. The instructions tell you to poke holes in the top of the bottle for the string and holes on the side for the chop stick and eating spouts.  It suggests parents use scissors or a sharp knife.  It wouldn’t work on our bottle. We had to get a utility knife out and finally got a little hole. My husband finally pushed through the crack with a screw driver to make a larger hole. It took us over 30 minutes to make the holes. The kids got impatient (so did I).
During the process my daughter told us something she learned at the Recycle plant field trip last week: The bottom of plastic bottles are so tough that they shouldn’t be kept for anything and need to be melted down for re-use.  My husband said a drill is really necessary for this craft (which doesn’t make it very child friendly). Sure enough, I looked online and found directions that suggested using a drill.

On top of all this frustration, it was hard to feed string to go through the holes on top. We had to find a plastic cord to push all the way through the bottle and tie it at the bottle opening then pull back in.  We also misplaced our funnel so it was a major pain to fill the bird seen into the bottle. 
I normally enjoy crafting with my kids but this was a huge craft FAIL. Please don’t try making the bird feeder at home, unless you want to do it without your kids around.
We decorated the bottle with decorative Scotch tape (butterflies) and pink animal print Duck tape. That made it look nice enough to hang in the back yard. Now the kids are excited to see if any birds come.

EASY SPRING ACTIVITIES:
PBS also has a recycling challenge with badges you can print out. Our kids are big on recycling at our house already so it was a good review.Try the Pinwheel for a fun, easy, spring craft. And watch the Curious George movie to bring on the Spring Fever! 
A new CURIOUS GEORGE online game will launch in late April. Featuring natural science concepts such as plant growth and butterfly metamorphosis, the game will give kids an opportunity to create their own music videos about spring.

CELEBRATE EARTH DAY and SPRING:
How will you celebrate?

Disclosure: I was sent a screener of the movie with a spring craft kit for review purposes.