Purple Gallinules of the Everglades

Gallinules are more vegetarian than other members of the rail family. They feed on berries, fruit, grain and seeds. They sometimes climbing up stalks to forage on seed heads. They also eat both terrestrial and aquatic plants and they're also known to eat insects, frogs and occasionally eggs and other small birds.

Purple Gallinule Sorting Activity

1. Make a collection of some of the foods that a gallinule eats. Have the children sort them.

2. Make patterns with the foods that the gallinules eat.



Their chicks, like other members of the rail family, are precocial.

In Biology, the term precocial refers to species in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. The opposite developmental strategy is called "altricial", where the young are born helpless.

Extremely precocial species may be called "superprecocial".

Precocial birds, including many ground-nesting species, have offspring that are born with well-ossified skeletons, with good sight, and covered with feathers. They depend on the attending parent(s) to brood them with body heat for a short period of time. Precocial birds find their own food, sometimes with help or instruction from the parents. Examples of precocial birds include the domestic chicken, many species of ducks and geese, and rails and crakes.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Bateman, inspired by Japanese art, painted this Gallinule encircled by the flamboyant iris leaves and flowers creating a pattern against the flat background of water.

It is important to teach children how to draw as well as expose them to art by accomplished artists to inspire them to illustrate the books they write.

The Purple Gallinule is an amazing bird. It walks gingerly on it's long yellow legs across the water stepping from lilypad to lilypad.

Children love to put on bright yellow tights and imitate the gallinule while walking in single file stepping on lilypads you make out of green foam sheets.

Write vocabulary words on each of the lilypads and have the children read them as they step on them.

Challange your students to find all the colors of the rainbow when labeling a picture of a Purple Gallinule.



Purple Gallinules are medium sized, chicken-like marsh birds with purple-blue upperparts washed with iridescent green, deep blue underparts. Forehead is pale blue; bill is red and yellow-tipped. Undertail coverts are white. Legs are yellow with very long toes. The flight is labored and slow with dangling legs.

Bird's skeletons are amazingly thin in comparison to their appearance with feathers on. When you eat a turkey or chicken, be sure to have the children help you clean the bones and talk about what part of the body each bone comes from.

Find the average height and length of a turkey or chicken and compare it to the skeleton.

Notice that a turkey or chicken's skeleton is similar to the skeleton of a purple gallinule.

It has been hard to find books that are written at an emergent reader level so we write our own.

After going on a fieldtrip, read about gallinules or watched a movie, have the children help you write books

1. Make a chart of all the words that they can brainstorm about Purple Gallinules.
2. Cut sheets of computer paper in half and then fold them in half.
3. Have the children draw a picture and then write a sentence about their picture.
4. Staple them together with a coverstock cover.
5. Read often and keep in the classroom library

We use predictable sentences such as:
The Purple Gallinule has blue feathers.
The Purple Gallinule has green feathers.
The Purple Gallinule has yellow legs.
The Purple Gallinule has a red bill.

Or use your computer to cut and paste pictures to write:

I see one Purple Gallinule.
I see two Purple Gallinules.
I see three Purple Gallinules.

Use a feather quill pen to write about the birds you see. Journaling can help you remember all those wonderful discoveries. It's also another fun way to practice handwriting.

Here are a few classroom ideas that were suggested by children and parents in the Chicken Literacy Bag Journal. All of these activities have been great fun and very educational.



Start gathering a collection of Eggs from various different types of birds. Ask parents to help, especially when they are going on vacation. I was able to obtain an emu egg at a county fair one summer.







1. Egg Dissection: Get a raw egg, a bowl, and a safety pin. Using the pin gently break off the outer shell of the egg. Look at the membrane. Gently peal off more and look at the egg white. check out the air pocket on one end of the egg. Look at the connection between the air sac and the yolk. Look carefully at the yolk. Feel the difference in stickiness and slipperiness of the yolk and the white. Cook and eat your egg.

2. Buy a whole chicken. Look at it very carefully. Can you see where the feathers were? Pull off the skin. Look at the muscles. Move the wings and thighs. Look at the ligaments, pull the muscles off the bones. See how the bones are attached. Compare to a human skeleton. Cook and eat the chicken.









3.Comparing Eggs: You will need the following materials: (raw egg, hard-boiled egg, bowl, Egg Exploration worksheet)
PARENT: Provide one raw egg and one hard-boiled egg. Use a pencil to write "1" on the raw egg and "2" on the hard-boiled egg. Do not tell the child what the numbers mean.
CHILDREN: Your child may work with a brother, sister or friend. Give them the eggs, a small bowl, two pencils, and two copies of the Egg Exploration worksheet. Have them use observation and deduction skills to complete the activity sheet. Caution the children to work carefully and gently with the eggs. See Exploring Eggs for more ideas.

4.TEACHER:Make cards shaped like eggs. Glue different types of animals that lay eggs on one side. Label each picture with simple words ie: chicken, frog, crocodile, bluebird, gallinule, etc. Make two cards of each pictures.


PARENT AND CHILD:Play Go Fish or Concentration

5. Dyeing Eggs
Use natural products to make egg dye. Beets-deep red, onions-yellow (add soda to make it bright yellow), cranberries-light red, spinach leaves-green, and blackberries-blue. Boil the fruit or vegetable in small amounts of water.
Let the children put a cool hard-boiled egg into a nylon stocking and dip it into the dye.
Keep the egg in the dye for several minutes.
Pull out the nylon and check the color.
If it is dark enough, place the egg on a paper towel to dry.
If children want to color the eggs before dyeing, show the children how wax keeps liquid from getting on the egg.

6.Rubber Eggs
Soak a raw egg in vinegar to take the calcium out of the eggshell. It will feel like rubber and you can see through it to the inside!



7. Magic Egg
Get the egg inside the bottle. The egg must be hard-boiled and peeled. Place the egg in the opening. Burn paper in the bottom; the egg will slip in! Blow into the bottle to pop the egg out!

8.MATERIALS:Biscuit Mix, 25-30 plastic oviparous animals(oviparous, of course).
PARENT AND CHILD: Make a batch of biscuits. Fold a plastic animal inside each biscuit and shape into an egg. Bake according to the directions on the package. Bring the "eggs" to school to share and wee what is "hatching" from their egg!



9.TEACHER: Use card stock and cut out two identical eggs as big as possible. Write the following words on the front of the first page: "I am an animal that hatches from an egg. I _________________.
I also _________________.What am I? (be sure there is room for the child's name) Draw a crack shape leaving a fold.
PARENT AND CHILD: Think of an oviparous animal and draw its picture on the inside of the "egg". Help your child to fill in the two blanks on the outside with two descriptive clues. Cut an opening with a crack shape to make a flap. Fold that flap back down and glue around only the edges so that the picture will show through the crack.
TEACHER: Decorate a thin cereal box to look like a nest to store all the eggs and let children read them during Silent Reading. Label the box "Who's Hatching?"

Some of these ideas are adapted from: www.angelfire.com/la/kinderthemes/escience.html

For more ideas related to birds check out Bluebirds: Classroom Meadow Theme.

Oh, no! They are looking up! These people may miss the Purple Gallinule because it will probably be walking around on the lilypads at their feet.

1. Set up an easel with paint the colors of the gallinule.
2. Set up another easel with the colors of the grasses growing in the everglades.
3. Set up another easel with the colors of the vast open sky.



4. Show the children how to make long brush strokes with the different colors
5. They might use dry brushes to dap on a little brown

NOTE: The idea is to cover the paper in color, not outline the bird shape.

6. Make templates of gallinules and grass blades out of stiff clear plastic.
7. Use the templates to search for appealing combinations of colors.
8. Trace around the templates and cut out the shapes.
9. Assemble the pieces on the bulletin board to show a Purple Gallinule Habitat.

10. Think about what each of the gallinules are doing. Write stories about each of the gallinules either as a class, in small groups, or individually.
11. Label each gallinule with the book written about him or her to encourage everyone to read the Gallinule Stories during Silent Reading.

These Antique Gallinule prints would be great for decorating your bathroom so that each time you walk in you are reminded of the wonderful time you had seeing your first Purple Gallinule.