"For the Birds" Kickoff ~ Book and Activities for Week of January 3rd

If you are joining us on our "For the Birds" study (and I don't think anyone is, but here's the info anyway), here are all of the specifics for the books and activities we will be doing:

Our main book will be About Birds: A Guide for Children written by Cathryn Sill and illustrated by John Sill.

TEACHER AND BIRDER Cathryn Sill explains to children what birds are, what they do, and how they live. Accompanied by beautifully detailed illustrations from noted wildlife illustrator John Sill.

 

 We will be doing the following activities throughout the week:

Graphing - I am going to just make a simple graph with the following headings across the top of a poster board: Feathers, Hatch from Eggs, Nest on the Ground, Nest up High, No Nest, Travel in Groups, Travels Alone, Swims, Runs, Use Bills to Gather Food, Sings, Small Size, Large Size. We will then read the book and write the names of the birds under each of the categories where they fall.

Egg Identification - We are additionally using the book Bird Eggs written by Helen Frost. I will cut out some eggs from card stock and color them according to the different eggs in the book. Then I will have Brynne take the drawn eggs and search the book for the type of bird the egg belongs to.

Egg carton counting - I am going to take an empty egg carton and have Brynne count beans into each of the cups by 2's, 5's and 10's.

Egg matching - There are many variations of this that could be done. I printed some Easter egg shapes from here. I first glued them to card stock, cut them out and colored them. Then I took scissors and cut them in half in different ways. I'll mix them up and have her match the cut shapes.

I saw some really great variations to this. Here are pictures of other things you could do depending on your child's age:

On the opposite side of the colored cut eggs, I am going to do math problems on one half and the answers on the other half. Then I'll mix them up and she can match the answers with the problems.

We go to Homeschool Coop on Fridays, and then we typically run errands and go to the library after that, so we limit organized school to Monday through Thursday.