Bird Study

    
There are quite a variety of birds that live on our Island.
If you took the time to notice you would see birds everyday.
Just outside our windows are chickadees, robins, starlings and
further down the road toward the water are gulls, hawks and eagles.
And Trumpeter Swans winter here, in the Valley, on the farmers
fields.
 
So it was a natural choice to study birds.
We started last week with a few art activities and a visit to the bird
sanctuary at the marsh. 
 
This week I encouraged the children to tell me what they know about birds
and what they wonder.  I soon realized the children are not often asked to
express their knowledge in this way and it took some time talking about
birds first to encourage them.
 
We wrote their thoughts on bird shaped paper and hung it on our
learning tree.
 
Once we had a few samples on the tree it became easier for
the children to think of more. 
 
I started to notice that most of their knowledge was about
what birds ate and where they lived.

      So this morning I changed the way we recorded what we know.
 
               He is drawing a tree with a nest on the top.
        
          Another child’s thoughts about the food they eat.
           We will continue this for a few more days.

In the next day or two I’ll add a few posts of other activities we’ve done
to support their knowledge.