Book Sharing Monday - The Magpies' Nest

Moving to Alberta from Ontario we are mezmerized by magpies. Beautiful colouring, long tail, and possibly the fact that there are so many of them we can't help but wonder what they do, where they fly, what they eat and much more. I've been told that locals find them boring and a bit of a pain, but being new here they evoke a strong interest. 

Searching our library for magpie books I came across this one that includes facts about many other types of birds as well.

The Magpies' Nest retold by Joanna Foster and illustrated by Julie Downing is a book about building nests. The birds ask how to make a nest in spring and the magpies build their nest and give a lesson to each bird about how to build a nest. Each bird in this book may use one or two of the things that the magpie adds but in the end the magpies have added many more items than any of the birds in the book. 

This story is a great way to introduce different types of nests. It's a must read for spring.

To join in on the fun of Book Sharing Monday or to read other entries visit http://canadianhomelearning.blogspot.com/

Book Sharing Monday - The Usborne Art Treasury

The Usborne Art Treasury is a wonderful book for us. The write-ups about the artists are short enough that I can keep the interest of the kids. The projects are fun and easy.

Austyn wanted to do a bird craft, but I was unable to find one that he wanted to do from our library of craft books. So I adapted a lesson from this book to go along with his bird theme. We learned about an artist who made mobiles in modern times and he created his own mobile with birds.

Here is his finished mobile hanging on his ceiling lamp.

Curiosity Club - Learning more about birds

We learned more about feathers today. We did some experiments on feathers we had in our craft supplies. Above is Austyn putting water on it and watching it bubble on top of the feather.

He decided to try and control where the water went on the feather by blowing on it. 

We also pulled apart the feather to see how it's all connected like little zippers. We saw that it didn't work as well when this happened. Then we used a tooth brush to preen the feathers ourselves. Preening is what birds do to re-zip those areas of their feathers that come unzipped. It worked. 

We read about different kinds of bird feet and bird beaks as well and saw pictures to compare.

Curiosity Club - Learning about birds

We are learning about birds right now in The Curiosity Club. We have been reading about birds in the book and in other books we've chosen. We've been watching the behaviour of birds in our own backyard. Austyn has a curiosity for humming birds so I downloaded a lap book that I'll post another time. I also downloaded another "My Favourite" lap book, which I'll also share later. For this post I'll focus on The Curiosity Club. I really love this book because it seems to be short interesting reads throughout. The activities include other subjects and are fun. There are many visuals in the book that help to explain what is being learned.

Here we did a mystery drawing. I gave the instructions on the white board. One instruction at a time, waiting for them to finish each step on their drawing pads. Then they guessed what they drew. This also helped to understand the make-up of feathers.

Here are their drawings. Austyn's is on the left and Zoe's is on the right. She restarted a couple of times on the first step so her final feather is at the bottom right of her page. 

We did an experiment with paper to learn how birds fly and after the kids decorated their piece of paper. 

We learned about different kinds of feathers. Feathers that come from different kinds of birds and feathers that are located on different parts of the bird and their special names. Then we looked closely at the feathers we had around the house including our craft feathers and discussed what bird they likely came from and what part of the bird the feathers were from. After that the kids experimented with the sound the feathers made when whooshed through the air. That lead into trying to use them to fly. So here is Austyn trying to fly with only one feather in each hand. Zoe is trying to fly with many feathers.

Bird Watching

There was a very interesting bird making a nest in this bird house. Austyn noticed it because he was hanging around this tree and the bird got very close and made the most interesting sound. It's too bad I didn't get a picture of the bird. It was so tiny! I couldn't identify it.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology - All About Birds

Even just in our own backyard we had some great bird watching experiences last spring through fall. The image above was taken of a baby robin who lived in our backyard and let us get closer looks. I'm looking forward to getting more into watching the birds again this year. We didn't have many over the winter without a feeder, but hope to see more now that we can add a feeder again and maybe a birdhouse. 

Did you ever want to learn more about birds? Maybe the bird guide that you purchased at your local book store just isn't filling all of your needs for your homeschool? The Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds site has some great information including birding basics, information on different species, maps, news, bird sounds, video, and much more. I know, many of you may already use this site, but for some of us (myself included) this is a great find that I wasn't aware of before now. We will be using this site information, without a doubt. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1189


I came across it after being directed to this site: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdsleuth. For us this site doesn't make much sense. We aren't about to spend lots of money on a curriculum that my kids seem to young for, however there are some free resources and ideas on the Bird Sleuth Website. It's worth a mention here, especially if you are looking at a way of helping out with research and using their full curriculum for bird feeder watching.

"Rock'n Robin... Tweet, tweet, tweet" ~ me singing right now... LOL!

Nature on a Florida Resort!

 

  

  

 These baby ducks were a delight to have around. They were tame and would chase us when we walked near. When we first arrived we counted nine but by the time we left there were only four left. One older couple who fed them every morning said that when they first arrived there were twelve ducklings but they think that the turtles eat them. 

 

  

  

Every year we feed the ducks on our resort. Above are the ducks marching in a row to get us to feed them. I thought that they walk so funny. They really look like they are on a mission. LOL!

  

This bird liked to purch on the Canadian Geese decoys. 

  

  

  

There were many different birds here. I didn't capture all of them on film. We saw some large ones that even reminded us of ostriches just outside the gates of our resort. There was also one duck that looked more closely related to a loon and would dive under the water for minutes at a time and a timid duck with a fan of feathers on it's head. 

 

Many of the trees were almost bare (likely the time of year) and most of them had these plants growing off them. 

  

The flowers were coming out on the bushes. They didn't seem affected by the cold weather.

  

Austyn wanted me to capture this cloud. It looked looked a skeleton.  

We had a tornado warning where we were but you wouldn't have known it. The torrential rains of Florida seem normal and apparently tornadoes can approach quickly and with little notice.  I was on the balcony reading, relaxing, and listening to the rain. I was completely unaware of the possibility of a tornado. 

“When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.” ~ Walt Disney