Learn about Bluebirds and Soar into Learning
Summer nears and the bluebirds start nesting along the fenceline. The children are fascinated with the way they fly back and forth to build their nests. They become the focus of our next Unit Study, Bluebirds of the Meadow.
As your little bluebirds flit from place to place they will find educational activities at every turn. Your students will read about Winsome Bluebird and Welcome Robin as they sit under the tree, paint with feathers, spell with birdseed and count the bird tracks. Open your wings and fly!!!
BIRDS AT CALENDAR TIME
At Calendar time we add pictures of birds that represent the ones seen outside the classroom window. We add the name of the bird below it's picture making this bulletin board a Word Wall for the children to use when writing. Materials for drawing, coloring and cutting out are in the observation center near the window.
- Feed and Count the Birds
Here Birdy, Birdy Kindergarten Telecollaborative Project
Now that fall has officially launched, our project is going full speed ahead. We want to officially welcome the students from Texas, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Costa Rica to the project. It is an honor to work with all of you. All teams need to keep an eye on the project calendar as we continue through the project.
Bluebirds Table of Contents
- BIRDS AT CALENDAR TIME
- BIRDFEEDERS
- Math is For the Birds
- THORNTON BURGESS BOOKS
- Write the Room and Who's Hatching
- Birds of a Feather Write Together
- Scientific Birds
- TURN YOUR CLASSROOM INTO A MEADOW
- BLUEBIRD GAMES
- Chickens Aren't The Only Ones
- Bird Games on eBay
- BIRDS OF A FEATHER DRAW TOGETHER
- Online Bird and Word Matching Game
- BLUEBIRD SONGS
- Bluebirds in the News!
- Bluebird House on eBay
- Bird Watching in the Woods
- Do you feed the birds? Have any of these ideas intriged you?
- The Isle of Squid
- Link the Birds
Bird Counting
Keep track of the birds that visit your feeder with this cleaver bird counting center.
To see bluebirds you need to have a large open field with lots of insects and bluebird houses placed about ten feet off the ground facing the east. See bluebird house construction below.
Lay a bulletin board down on a table near the window. Make columns with bias tape. Children use push pins to record the birds seen outside the window.
Even if you have a field outside your window, it will be easier for your children to count and identify the birds at the feeder nearer the window. Having field guides and laminated posters of common birds for your area will help in identification.
To see bluebirds you need to have a large open field with lots of insects and bluebird houses placed about ten feet off the ground facing the east. See bluebird house construction below.
Lay a bulletin board down on a table near the window. Make columns with bias tape. Children use push pins to record the birds seen outside the window.
Even if you have a field outside your window, it will be easier for your children to count and identify the birds at the feeder nearer the window. Having field guides and laminated posters of common birds for your area will help in identification.
BIRDFEEDERS
You can make your own bird feeders.
COOKING IS FOR THE BIRDS: Your kitchen station should be near water and an outlet. Have a toaster oven, aprons, hot mitts, bowls, measuring cups and spoons, and basic foods such as flour, vinegar, salt, and ingredients for making suet available. A small refrigerator with a freezer is ideal for doing experiments with ice.
1. Write a recipe for suet. Laminate it and post it in your kitchen cooking station. Whenever the birds need more suet you can open this station and the children can measure and mix food for the birds reading the recipe.
2. There could also be recipes for healthy cookies that could be rolled out and cut with letter shaped cookie cutters. Children at this station could cut out their names or theme related words and later share them with the rest of the class during snack time. (This station probably needs a parent volunteer.)
COOKING IS FOR THE BIRDS: Your kitchen station should be near water and an outlet. Have a toaster oven, aprons, hot mitts, bowls, measuring cups and spoons, and basic foods such as flour, vinegar, salt, and ingredients for making suet available. A small refrigerator with a freezer is ideal for doing experiments with ice.
1. Write a recipe for suet. Laminate it and post it in your kitchen cooking station. Whenever the birds need more suet you can open this station and the children can measure and mix food for the birds reading the recipe.
2. There could also be recipes for healthy cookies that could be rolled out and cut with letter shaped cookie cutters. Children at this station could cut out their names or theme related words and later share them with the rest of the class during snack time. (This station probably needs a parent volunteer.)
WOODLAND CAFE
A Mathematical Activity
WOODLAND CAFE:
1. Write a menu for the Woodland Cafe with pictures and labels of foods that the Woodland Creatures would eat.
2. Make sure that there are 12 items on the menu.
3. Give a value of 1 to 12 either cents or dollars to each item.
4. Have chits (bills) available that have room to write down the name of the customer and two items of food ordered with the amount written beside it and a place to total the bill.
5. Using a 12 sided die or rolling two regular dice find out the food eaten and add up the total.
6. The die could tell the total amount of the bill and the students could try to figure out the two items he/she must have eaten to come up with that total.
Have twelve counters available to help them work out the problem.
Math is For the Birds
Use these little birds to make patterns or math problems on the Bluebird Magnet Board. I have index cards and markers for the children to make up math problems for their friends. They put the answers on the back for self checking.
Look for more great ideas in Mathematics Their Way.
THORNTON BURGESS BOOKS
Gather Your Little Bluebirds for Story Hour
After lunch recess, we like to gather on the rug under Grandfather Tree and loose ourselves in the Green Meadow with all the Merry Little Breezes, Peter Rabbit, Reddy Fox, Winsome Bluebird and Welcome Robin.
These are easy reader chapter books that teach about nature while imparting the wisdom of friendship, honesty etc. Learn about Winsome Bluebird and Welcome Robin. They are friends and cousins who signal to the other little creatures of the meadow that spring is here. These are the some characters that are found in "The Adventures of Little Joe Otter"
Blacky the Crow (Dover Children's Thrift Classics) by Thornton W. Burgess
Children will love this wonderful tale of a crow w more...3 points
Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack (Dover Children's Thrift Classics) by Thornton W. Burgess
Poor Mrs. Quack the Duck has suffered terrible mis more...3 points
The Adventures of Mr. Mocker by Thornton, W. Burgess
"If you please, Mistah Buzzard, you can tell more...3 points
The Adventures Of Bob White (1919) by Thornton Waldo Burgess
Burgess was the model for talking animal stories. more...3 points
Write the Room and Who's Hatching
WRITE THE ROOM: Give children 10 cut up pieces of sentence strips. They will look for a word to copy onto each of the cards. They can use toilet paper binoculars, sunglasses, funny glasses etc. and pith helmets to look for the words. When finished they put them in the Bird Mailbox and put the flag up. (These cards will be used in the next activity.)
WHO'S HATCHING: Keep plastic easter eggs in a nest. Inside each egg put the letters to form words being studied. Have your Little Bluebirds find out the names of the baby chicks by unscrambling the letters to form words.
Birds on Stage
FINGER PUPPETS: Have a parent volunteer help children to make finger puppets from felt. Take the felt and fold it in half. Slip your finger into the fold and cut a straight line up leaving enough room to sew a seam. When you get to the tip of the finger angle the cut to a point. Take this piece and sew up where you cut. Now cut a half circle out on the fold where the tip of your finger comes. Put your finger back in and draw a face directly on your finger with a pen or marker. You now have a Finger Gnome. Change colors of felt, add wings, ears etc. and you have animals. Make lots of animals and put them near the Puppet Theater below.
PUPPET THEATER: Take a couple of tin buckets with tall grass growing in them. Put an overturned milk carton between them and a 9X13 pan of short grass on top of the milk crate. The milk crate could be covered in brown dirt colored cloth. Use the finger puppets from the above activity to act out scenes from the Green Meadows.
Verbs on the Telephone Wire
One Crow on the Telephone Wire
VERBS ON THE WIRE: Read "One Crow" by Jim Aylesworth. Notice how birds often sit on telephone wires especially on the edges of meadows. They are looking for insects and often flit off to catch one and then return to the wire. Hang a telephone wire near the door where you line up to go out. Cut out bluebird shaped pieces of card stock. Keep a stack of them in a nest near the door with a marker. As you wait for stragglers brainstorm verbs. Write the verb on a bird and hang it on the line. While you are waiting point to different verbs and have those in line act the action out in place
BUSY LITTLE BLUEBIRDS
Nothing keeps them on task and learning like a good game.
WRITE THE ROOM: Give children 10 cut up pieces of sentence strips. They will look for a word to copy onto each of the cards. They can use toilet paper binoculars, sunglasses, funny glasses etc. and pith helmets to look for the words. When finished they put them in the Bird Mailbox and put the flag up. (These cards will be used in the next activity.)
WHO'S HATCHING: Keep plastic easter eggs in a nest. Inside each egg put the letters to form words being studied. Have your Little Bluebirds find out the names of the baby chicks by unscrambling the letters to form words.
EGGS IN THE NEST BULLETIN BOARD: Make a meadow scene with a row of fence posts running across it. On each fence post put a Jello box that has been decorated to look like a bluebird house with the roof hinged so that eggs can be added and taken out. Each birdhouse has a number on it that represents the answer to a number problem. Eggs have number problems or word problems. The students put the eggs back into the right nests. If you have 10 birdhouses and 20 eggs the back of each egg could correspond to the color on the inside of the roof of the birdhouse for self checking. (Move the birdhouses often so that they don't memorize the colors instead of the math problems.)
WHO'S HATCHING: Keep plastic easter eggs in a nest. Inside each egg put the letters to form words being studied. Have your Little Bluebirds find out the names of the baby chicks by unscrambling the letters to form words.
EGGS IN THE NEST BULLETIN BOARD: Make a meadow scene with a row of fence posts running across it. On each fence post put a Jello box that has been decorated to look like a bluebird house with the roof hinged so that eggs can be added and taken out. Each birdhouse has a number on it that represents the answer to a number problem. Eggs have number problems or word problems. The students put the eggs back into the right nests. If you have 10 birdhouses and 20 eggs the back of each egg could correspond to the color on the inside of the roof of the birdhouse for self checking. (Move the birdhouses often so that they don't memorize the colors instead of the math problems.)
Bluebird Mail
BLUEBIRD MAIL: Students dress as mail carriers, passenger pigeons or Bluebird Mail carriers with mail sacks and hats. They take the cards from the mailbox and put the flag down. The then deliver the mail to the correct birdhouse. The bird house will have signs on them that correspond to phonic skills being studied for example
-words beginning with letter b on one house and d on the other.
-verbs vs. nouns
-three letter words vs. four letter words(Ask the students for other ideas to reuse these words.)
Shadow Puppets
SHADOW PUPPETS: In a dark corner or in the cave of the tree (see River Otter Unit Study) hang a white sheet with a flashlight behind it. Cut shapes of different meadow creatures out of black card stock. One student holds the flashlight. One student moves the puppets and tells the story. Two children are in the audience. Use a timer to limit let them know when to rotate roles.
Go Fish or Concentration
Make two sets of bird cards. Write the name of each bird on the bottom. Teach the children how to play Go Fish or Concentration with these cards.
GAME TABLE: Make theme related cards with words to play Bingo, Concentration, or Go Fish. Allow up to 4 at this station. Max by Family Pastimes (see below) is a wonderful game where children cooperatively try to help a bird, mouse and chipmunk get back to their tree before Max the Cat comes to eat them.
Wings
BIRD WINGS: Using large pieces of felt make sets of wings. Sew two inch wide strips of felt on the top and bottom of each wing so that the child can slip his/her arm through. Make two more two inch wide strips about a yard or so long attached at the shoulders only. These cross the child's chest and tie in the back. Make one set blue for Winsome Bluebird, one set red for Welcome Robin. Find a couple of pairs of bright yellow socks such as soccer socks to use for bird feet. Children can act out the roles of Winsome and Robin.
Birds of a Feather Read Together
ABC BOOK WRITING CENTER: Brainstorm ideas as a class for each of the letters of the alphabet. Post these ideas above the Writing Center. Children work alone or in pairs to write and illustrate a page, cross it off the list, sign their names beside it and put the page into a folder hanging beside the list. When all pages are completed ask a parent volunteer to bind it. Read it to the class and add it to the class library or Book Nook.
POEMS AND CHANTS: Copy poems, songs, and chants onto large poster boards and have them laminated.
READ THE ROOM: Children can use theme related pointers to read the charts with a partner. Favorite Beginning Readers
HIGHLIGHTER TAPE: Children can use Highlighter Tape on the charts to highlight verbs, beginning letters, rhyming words etc. Favorite Beginning Readers
Birds of a Feather Write Together
Put the letters for spelling bluebird on this magnetic bird shaped board. Add a picture of a bluebird with magnet attached and the word bluebird. Children unscramble the word.
Variation: Unscramble the sentence.
Variation: Unscramble the sentence.
BIRD FIELD GUIDES
Beyond the Bird Feeder: The habits and behavior of feeding-station birds when they are not at your feeder by John V. Dennis
A Good Overview of Bird Behavior, March 15, 200 more...3 points
The Bird Lover's Backyard Handbook: Attracting, Nesting, Feeding by Jan Mahnken
Book Description<br />&a more...3 points
Birds (Fandex Family Field Guides) by Michael W. Robbins
Bringing the world of Birds to your fingertips, Fa more...2 points
Scientific Birds
Scientists now believe that birds have navigational systems nearly as sophisticated as those of commercial airlines.
Background For Teachers:
Birds are a group of animals with very specific characteristics. They are warm blooded, have feathers and hollow bones, and lay eggs. All birds have wings, but not all birds fly. They all have beaks, but each type of bird has a different type of beak, depending on the kind of food it eats.
SCIENCE TABLE: Collect feathers, egg shells, nests, seeds, etc. Have a cage of parakeets or finches nearby. Magnifying glass, tweezers, nutcracker, lab coat, safety goggles, etc. for examining the collection. Field guides such as "The Sibley Guide to Birds" by David Allen Sibley should be handy. Record your observations.
OPERATING ROOM: With the teacher or an experienced parent volunteer, dissect a chicken, turkey, and a quail. Check for skin, where feathers attach, muscles, fat, bone structure, etc. Move the wings and see how the ligaments hold the bones together. -Dissect chicken, duck, emu, and quail eggs.
-Dissect a rabbit and any other animal you can acquire. How about clams, muscles, fish, snails, lobster, shrimp...
CLASSROOM ZOO: Compare the birds to the fish in your Aquarium, your hamster, butterfly, frog and turtle. What do they have in common? How are they alike? Record your observations.
SOIL SCIENCE: Go on a walk and collect samples of soils in different habitats. (meadow, riverbank, forest, etc) Store these samples in labeled baby food jars. At the Science Table open each one and smell, observe, touch, and rub some between your fingers to hear the similarities and differences.(Do not taste them.) Draw pictures of your observations. If they are dry try adding water with eyedroppers. Observe and record the differences. How do the different soils effect the types of vegetation growing in the different habitats and how does this in turn effect the types of animals living there.
Raising Baby Chicks
TURN YOUR CLASSROOM INTO A MEADOW
BLUEBIRDS nest in small cavities in lone trees or fence posts on the edge of fields. The fields are full of many different types of grasses and wildflowers as well as insects, snakes, and other birds. (Look in my other lenses for ideas on how to add trees and water to your room.)
FLANNEL BOARD:Set up a Flannel Board with a meadow scene (see below). Add plants and animals from the meadow. More variety can be added by cutting out pictures and gluing them onto scraps of flannel. These pictures can have words written on them. Words such as AND, THE, IS, can also be glued to the flannel for writing sentences.RICE TABLE MEADOW: Surprise you little bluebirds by dumping a bag of potting soil into the rice table. Give them some birdseed and a little water to sprinkle to make streams run through. Add playmobile figures or other little plastic animals, small twigs, etc. and let them make up stories as they go. Keep a cover on it whenever it's not in use. In a few days they will be surprised when the seeds sprout and start to grow. Record this growth on a chart nearby.
PLANTS: Grasses grow easily in shallow containers. Put 1-2 inches of soil in 13X9 baking pans. Children can scatter birdseed, grass seed, or collect seeds from plants found on walks. Add some wild flower seeds. When you go on walks look for varieties you haven't seen before. Keep notes in your journal.BIRDS ALL AROUND: Put plush birds by Wild Republic (See below) in the tree and a bluebird on a post out in the open. During circle time put several of these birds in a sack. Squeeze one at a time and have them guess which one it is from the call. In the listening center play CD's of Bird Calls (See Below)
FLYING BIRDS: Ask parent volunteers to help you make the :Bird Mobiles" by Anne Wild (see below). Read about each type of bird as you hang them up. "Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing Birds" by Jim Arnosky (see below) has beautiful illustrations and easily captures their attention.
FEEDING STATION: Set up bird feeders outside near the window. See "The Bird Lover's Backyard Handbook: Attracting, Nesting, Feeding" by Jan Mahnken. Write a recipe for suet in the cooking center and have children make and replace the suet as needed. Measure and record the amounts of different kinds of seeds eaten by birds daily. Put binoculars and pith helmets in the loft of the tree (see River Otters Unit Study lens) and record your observations of the birds at the feeder. Join the Kindergarten Class from the "Here Birdy, Birdy Kindergarten Telecollaborative Project" in recording the birds at your feeder at Calendar Time. (See link below)
FLANNELBOARD MEADOW
and the science of Grass
- Meadow - Sky Flannelboards
- Note: A Mounted flannelboard is adhered to two sheets of heavy guage cardboard backing. The Large & Medium fold in half and the Small includes a cardboard tabletop stand that pops out of the back. Unmounted flannelboards are do-it-yourself, where you need to mount it with your own material or use it as a loose sheet of fabric.
All of our flannelboards are made with high quality 100% polyester felt. - How Grass Works
- At the base of the grass plant, roots grow down into the earth. Typically, grass roots are fibrous, or threadlike. They extend into the soil like fingers, collecting nutrients, soaking up water and securing the plant to the ground. (Click on link to see the whole article by Tom Harris)
BIRDS IN FLIGHT
BLUEBIRD PHOTOS
Dad comes in for a l...
Faster, Dad! Faster!
Just WAIT.
My turn???
Checking
PICTURE BOOKS
Leaving the Nest by Mordicai Gerstein
Book Description<br />
What do a baby blue j more...2 points
BUILDING BLUEBIRDBIRD HOUSES
At the time that Thornton Burgess wrote about Winsome Bluebird and Welcome Robin bluebirds were common. With habitat loss, pollution and the introduction of the English Sparrow, Bluebirds have become quite scarce.Photo on how to build a bluebird house comes from
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/tabid/6084/default.aspx
All About Bluebirds
- The Bluebird Box
- FAQ's, articles and photo gallery about bluebirds and bluebird boxes.
LINKS TO GAMES
- Flash My Brain
- Create and print out your own flashcards.
Flash My Brain allows you to create and save your own sets, play more games, save and view your study progress, print in a variety of formats, generate iPod flashcards, and access 100,000s more flash cards. You can manage flash card decks, splitting and combining them, and you can even import flash cards from CSV files and other formats.
All you need to get started is a net-connected computer that can run Flash Player 8. Flash My Brain is Net-powered software which means you can use it at school, work, or home. - Counting Birds Wall Cards
- Beautifully printed 8 x 10 wall cards feature Cardinals, Hummingbirds, Wrens, Sparrows and everybody's favorite digits: 1 thru 10. Heavy card stock. Display on shelves or tack to wall. Suitable for framing. Attractively gift packaged in an illustrated box with ribbon.
BLUEBIRD GAMES
Edible Bird Nests
While birds are busy outdoors building nests and starting new families, you and your students can create edible nests in the classroom.
Heat one container of chocolate frosting in a saucepan. (It liquefies when heated.) Then add 1 bag chinese noodles. Blob the mixture onto wax paper and have kids "form" nests using plastic spoons. Use jelly beans for eggs. Nest hardens as it cools.
By Sherri Mcwhorter
Label the Bluebird
LABEL THE PARTS OF THE BLUEBIRD: Attach a large picture of a bluebird to a magnetic board or tray. Use magnet words or cards with magnet strips attached to label the parts of the bird. Have a Bird Field Guide handy.
Chickens Aren't The Only Ones
Oviparous Animals
When studying birds I like to diverge a little and learn about all the other oviparous animals, animals that lay eggs. Quail eggs, duck eggs and emu eggs can often be found to bring in to class. I like to put them into a paper sack and ply 20 Questions with the children so they can guess what I have brought in. The questions can only be answered with a yes or no. This develops a lot of excitement and anticipation. We then estimate the circumference and weight and then check our estimates with a tape measure and scales. Each of the children gets to hold the eggs and then we disect them very carefully looking at the membrane, the yolk and the white parts.
We brainstorm all of the animals that we can think of that lay eggs and then I read "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones".
Mrs. Flanagan has more great Oviparous ideas.
Last year we went on a field trip to the Everglades during nesting season. There was a Great Blue Heron nest right beside the Visitor's Center. Many Anhingas were nesting in trees along the path and we found the eggs of the Pondapple Snail in a sinkhole along the path.
Did You Ever See An Egg?
Sung to: "Did You Ever See a Lassie?"
Did you ever see an egg and think what was inside it?
Did you ever see an egg and think what was inside?
It could be a chick, or a fish, or a lizard.
Did you ever see an egg and think what was inside?
For next verse, substitute other oviparous
animals in place of chick, fish, and lizard.
Eggs
Lots of animals come from eggs
Some with fins
And some with legs.
Some that chatter
And some that cheep
Some that fly
And some that creep.
Some that slither
And some that run
Some with feathers
And some with none.
Animal eggs can be quite small
Or just as big as a tennis ball.
The animals here
They're quite a few
Hatch from eggs
And lay them, too.
Mrs. Pohlmeyer has lots more Oviparous ideas too.
Chickens Aren't the Only Ones (World of Nature Series)
Amazon Price: $7.99 (as of 07/26/2008)
Educational Games and Toys to Learn More About Bluebirds
The Great North American Bird Watching Trivia Board Game
Birders everywhere, its time to drop your binocula more...2 points