Nature Study: Birds of Spring

If you drive past my house you might notice some horrible looking Christmas greenery still hanging up on my porch.  No, we are not just procrastinators who forgot to take down their decorations from Christmas!  

Picture of our Ugly, Brown, Dead-Looking Christmas Hanging Baskets aka The House Finch's Perfect Home

OK, I take that back.....  Perhaps we do tend to procrastinate a bit when it comes to taking down Christmas decorations.  However, that is not the only reason we have left our Christmas stuff out.  This year we have a very good excuse for leaving those baskets up.   Inside those ugly, dried out baskets is a family of house finches. It has been a wonderful experience for all of us observing those beautiful birds this spring...and right outside our front door no less!

Photo of The House Finch courtesy of IBC Bird

Hollywood Comes to Visit:
Late winter/early spring I started to notice this pretty pair of small birds scoping out our hanging baskets.  They would kind of hang out in the tree next to it, checking out the scene:  Watching how often we came in and out of our front door;  Watching the baskets to see if they were sturdy;   Landing on them and popping their heads in and out of the leaves, etc.  So I left the baskets up with the hunch that perhaps the birds were looking for a nesting location.  I had no idea what kind of birds they were at the time.  I just thought they were pretty--and I felt it nice to give the poor creatures a home seeing that my suburban-housing-development probably took up a much of their natural nesting spots.

I got out my favorite bird field guide and the kids and I looked the birds up.  We discovered that we had a family of house finches moving in.  The kids were eager to learn more about these "new pets"---so I we started to research them and learn more about them.  It turns out these simple little birds have an interesting history.  House finches were originally only residents of Mexico and the Southwestern United States.  However, in the 1940's the birds were illegally sold as "pets" marketed under the name of Hollywood Finches.  The name was a marketing ploy given to make the finches seem more posh and exclusive.  Well...in order to avoid procescution under the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918, the owners and distributors of these birds started releasing them into the wild.  The birds did not die when released into the wild and infact, the "Hollywood Finches" thrived.  So much so that they are displacing the native purple finch and house sparrows.

Range Increase of House Finch:  Photos from Wikipedia

Beautiful Soundtrack:

These baskets hang inches from my front door.  So when I would have the door open I can hear the little male just singing his heart out trying to establish my porch as his territory.  The house finch has a beautiful song.  You can click this link to hear their songs.  I will sometimes just open my front door so that I can hear these little finches singing as I am cleaning up our living room.  I have to admit that I did feel a bit like snow white cleaning my house with birds singing to me in the background.   I am a firm believer that all mothers should have birds serenade them as they clean the house!

Birds should always sing to you as you clean the house! 

The Babies Arrive!
Seemingly overnight, the female finished building the nest.  The male didn't seem to help much.  Unless you call singing noisily nearby helping, and tweeting loudly at everything that pasts the nest. ???  However, the nest was built very quickly and effeciently by that mother!  Almost a week after the nest was constructed the mother begin to sit on her nest.  I didn't take any picture of this since I didn't want to spook her.  I could tell she wanted privacy and as a mother myself I respected that.  :) 

Around Easter time, the female begin leaving the nest for short periods of time to visit our bird feeder outback.  I did sneak a picture inside her nest and this is what I found:

Picture Taken 4-23-2011:  Inside the nest of a House finch.  Two VERY tiny baby birds and one egg left unhatched.

I didn't take too many picture because I could tell the poor things were frightened for their lives when they saw a HUGE person standing over their nest.  They would shake and shiver when I would come near them.   I would also try and sneak and take a peek into their nest only when the mother wasn't around.  I was afraid that she might not come back to her nest if she saw me messing with it.  (I don't know if that was a valid concern or not.  However, I didn't want to risk it.) 

A few days later I snapped another picture and to my surprise, the third egg/bird was missing.  (At least I couldn't see it all in the nest.)  I looked around the ground and I didn't see any broken egg shells or eggs.  So it is a mystery to me what could have happened to the third egg/chick. 

Picture Taken 4-26-2011:  Inside the nest of a House Finch.  What happened to the third egg/bird?

Empty Nesters:
At this point, my little baby "Hollywood Finches" have fledged the nest.  We are officially empty nesters.  I have seen multiple small House Finches at our feeders and I like to imagine that those are the babies that were in our nest.   (There is no way of knowing for sure though.)  The mother and father finches still hang out in the tree outside our perch.  And I even caught the female bringing a little piece of fluff over and stuffing it into the empty nest.

Thanks for reading!!


Links to become Attached To:
The Handbook of Nature Study Spring Bird Series
Preschool Corner

UPDATED- Nature Study for Preschoolers: Twig Race

Picture Taken on 4-15-2011--Scroll to the bottom to see the UPDATE on this post

 Do you have a preschooler who loves to race?  Are they always racing to see who can be the first up the stairs?  Or the first to the car?   Well, I have a little boy who loves racing.  So we decided to incorporate a little racing in our nature study this week by having a "twig race."  This is an excellent project for you to do with your kids this time of year.

This project came from the book Mudpies to Magnets: A Preschool Science Curriculum.  It is a fantastic book filled with GREAT ideas of exploring science with preschool aged children.  I highly recommend it.



What is a Twig Race?
"The Twig Race utilizes observation of the marvel of spring---the renewed growth of trees as buds and leaves grow from their twigs.  But which grows fastest, the twig on the tree or the cut twig that is taken inside?  The children observe the growth of the twigs both indoors and out.  Who wins the race?  Try it and find out!", Mudpies to Magnets: A Preschool Science Curriculum, p. 127.

How to have a Twig Race?

In the very early spring (like right now!), pick a tree that your children are well associated with to study.  We chose a cherry tree that grows right outside our front door.  We pass this tree several times per day as we go in and out of the house.  So we have plenty of chances to observe it throughout the year.

Talk to the children about the lack of leaves on the tree.  Also, point out the buds on the tree to the child.  Have the child describe the buds as they see them.  (Different trees have different feeling and looking buds.)  Also explain to them the purpose of the buds.

Next explain that we are going to have a race with the tree and see which twig sprouts first:  the twig the tree takes care of OR the twig that we take care of indoors.  Clip a twig off of the tree using a clean cut and put it indoors in water next to a window.    Also, pick a specific twig which you wish to race by tying a piece of brightly colored yarn or ribbon on it.

Everyday observe the twig outdoors and the twig you are taking care of indoors.  Which twig wins the race?

Our results:
The kids and I made a hypothesis on which twig would win the race.  I personally thought that the twig left on the tree would bloom first.  Marcus and Sophie thought that they would win the race by taking very good care of their twig indoors.

Well...who won the race?   In our case, it was the twig left indoors.  (I was quite surprised!)
The buds on our twig are just beginning to bloom into very pretty flowers:

Our indoor twig (picture taken on 4-11-2011)

The twig outdoors is still far from blooming:

Here you can see our outdoor twig we are observing.  We tied it with a red piece of yarn so we could easily find it.  (picture taken on 4-11-2011)

We are going to continue to observe our twig indoors and out to watch for other changes.

Well, thanks for reading!  I hope you enjoy this special time spent with your children getting acquainted with nature.
_______________________________
UPDATE:  As of April 13, 2011, our Cherry Tree is in FULL BLOOM! 

Picture taken on 4-15-2011-Most of the Cherry Tree is in full bloom

The blooms happened slowly at first, and then, seemingly overnight, the entire tree was covered with flowers.  It was really a magnificent change.

Picture Taken on 4-15-2011

 Here you can see our twig that we were racing with.  (Remember, we tied it with red yarn to mark it.)

The tree obviously won the race!  Picture taken on 4-15-2011

Meanwhile, the cut twig hasn't shown much change.  It has very little, meager-looking blossoms.  So although the cut trees blossoms may have opened first, they lack the splendor that the actual tree produced.

As to be expected, the tree takes better care of its twigs than we can.  Picture taken on 4-15-2011

 
Here come the honey bees:
On the very first day our tree blossomed, the tree was COVERED with bees.  Probably about 30-40--- which seemed like a lot to me!  I was inside the house and I could actually hear their humming.  However, after about a day they moved on and I haven't seen a single one back. 




Links to Become Attached to:

• Science Sundays  -Click here to see some other ideas for exploring science with your child
• The Handbook of Nature Study-A great blog with tons of ideas for exploring nature using the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
• Preschool Corner- See what other preschoolers are doing this week

Artist Study: John James Audubon

We recently completed an informal artist/picture study of John James Audubon.  As amateur naturalists, this was an artist study which really inspired us.

Here are some resources that we used:

Audubon: Painter of Birds in the Wild Frontier by Jennifer Armstrong
This is a beautifully illustrated book which relates John James Audubon's adventures in the American frontier.  This book really held the children's attention and I enjoyed reading it too! 







The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon by Jacqueline Davies
This book was another interesting read.  It talked a bit about John James Audubon's life as a child and the method he used to discover for himself what exactly happened to birds in the winter.  I found that this book really encouraged children to ask questions and look for their own answers. 






Into the Woods: John James Audubon Lives His Dream by Robert Burleigh
This book didn't make for as great of a read aloud as some of the others.  However, I think it would make an excellent read aloud for older children.  We did enjoy flipping through this book and reading some of the exerts of Audubon's own journal. 






Audubon's Birds of America by John James Audubon
Whenever possible, we like to try and reserve a large, over-sized book that shows work by the artist.  Many of these works are available for viewing online.  However, I personally like to look at art in a book rather than on the computer.  Throughout the week we flipped through this book.  I tried to show some birds that the kids knew and had them try to identify them.  We looked at the red-winged black birds, the cardinal, the blue jay and some other common birds that the kids could identify. 




Preschool Artist Study Activities on John James Audubon:
We like to check out these books from the library and then spend as much as 6-8 weeks just casually reading and looking at them as time permits and the kids are interested.  (I try to keep the books out in full view so that the kids can naturally see them and pick them up.  To see pictures of how I "skew" our artists study books you can go here.) 


Read-Alouds:
We read the more biographical books about John James Audubon throughout the day as the kids were interested.   Why do I add in some many biographical books about the artists?  Well, for me personally,  I find that I can retain a lot more to an artist when I "know" his or her personal story.  So I like to read books which describe the life of the artist to the children so they can look at his art in the context of the events of his life.   It gives us a better appreciation for the art.

For example, we all know that Audubon loved birds and nature.  But do we know why?  He was a very popular child.  He was known as the best fencer, the fastest runner, a handsome boy...so why did he like to escape into the woods so often to be with birds and animals?  Well, we found out that as a young child, John James's father often took him on nature walks pointing out the beauty of the birds and their various habits.  It was a very special time for him.  Well, in 1803, his father obtained a false passport so that Audubon could go to the United States to avoid going to war.  On his journey over, he became very ill with yellow fever and had to be nursed back to health.  In the United States, we have to imagine that life was very lonely for him without his family and friends.  So we have to imagine that escaping into nature was a way of coping for him in the United States.

The other thing we learned is that as a young man, Audubon used to cover his room with his artwork in an almost obsessive manner.  And then, at the end of the year, he would set all of his artwork on fire because he didn't think it was good enough to keep.  He hoped that some day he would have art work good enough to keep.  If you look at John James Audubon's work, it isn't famous for its beauty per se.  I personally don't look at any of his work and say, "That is the most beautiful painting of a cardinal I have ever seen."  Because surely you can find other, "better" paintings of birds.  But what makes Audubon's work special is the wonderful attention he put in to make the paintings amazingly technically accurate.  He really conveys not only the shape and form of the birds, but their habits, coloring, and environment.  The other thing that makes his work special is their completeness and the sheer massive body of his work.  He literally risked his life to travel across America to watch and paint the American birds in their natural habitat.   So even though he wasn't perhaps as naturally gifted as other artists, he worked hard for his art.  We could relate to this in our own nature journals.

(To see our schedule and more about how we fit picture study into our day, you can go here.)

Activities:
We decided to make our own paintings of birds just like John James Audubon did.  The kids put their pictures in their nature notebooks and I put my own in my natural journal.  (Yes, I like to do things right along side the children!   I like to show them that learning is part of everyday life.) 

Marcus's Painting of a Great Horned Owl (4 yrs old) - I included a picture of what he was painting in case you couldn't tell.  :)

Sophia's Painting of a Snowy Owl (2 yrs old)

Mommy's cardinal painting in my nature journal

The kids were given the choice to paint any bird they were interested in.  Marcus picked the great horned owl and Sophia picked the Snowy owl.  I chose to paint the male cardinal.

The kids became so interested in Snowy Owls after looking at pictures of them that we later did an entire nature study of Snowy Owls.  (I will save that for another post!)

Lapbooking and Notebook Pages:
If your children are the crafty type, they might also enjoy putting together a lapbook or a few pages for a notebook as a way of remembering what they learned. 

Here are two great notebooking/lapbook sources-
- John James Audubon Notebooking Pages  (Made specifically to go along with the book The Boy Who Drew Birds)
-Backyard Birds Lapbook

Well, thanks for reading! 

Links to Become Attached to:
-Simply Charlotte Mason Picture Study Guide
-See John James Audubon's Birds of America online for free here
-Another guide to an artist study John James Audubon
-What my child is reading
- Pre-School Corner
- Tot School

What we did all day...

 (Marcus is 45 months old and Sophia is 28 months old)

Here are some of our recent adventures learning and playing--


On the Learning Shelves:
*To see more information on how we use our learning shelves, please visit this tot school post here.
I rotated the following toys/activites out on the shelves this week:


1)  3D Feel & Find--  This was a HUGE hit with the kids this week.  Sophia and Marcus would just crack up laughing every time we brought this out to play.   To play this game, you put the different 3D shaped blocks into the "mystery bag".  Then, you try to feel around and find that block that matches your tile.  To make it easier, I started out with only 3 shapes that were very different from each other.  By the end of the week they seemed to need more of a challenge, so I added in a fourth shape. 

2)   See & Spell Puzzles--  This was another activity that both kids enjoyed.  I liked this activity because they had enough letters and puzzle tiles for both kids to play at once.  I started out the week with all of the letters and puzzles out.  However, I could tell that it was overwhelming for Sophia.  She was having problems finding the correct letters.  So I put away all of the longer word puzzles and left out only the three letter word puzzles.  I also only put out the letters that worked with the puzzle.  Sophia had a lot more success this way. 


3)  Bead Sequencing Set--  I have to admit that I was not happy with the quality of this activity.  The wooden cards are really difficult to get into the slots.  You have to really cram them in.  No way could a child do this by themselves.  Also, we seem to be short a purple bead that is needed to complete the first pattern.  I need to contact the manufacturer...but, you know, it is just annoying that I have to do that.  The kids enjoyed this activity very much.  They didn't seem to get the idea of following the patterns, but they did enjoy building "towers" by stringing the beads.  We will continue to work on the patterns later on.  I just brought this out as an introduction.

4)  Homemade Cinamon Scented Play Dough-

We are doing a very laid back apple unit study this month and next.  So I made a red play dough scented with real ground cinnamon to go with the apple theme.  This is my new favorite play dough recipe.  The smell is indescribably.  It has an amazing texture unlike any other dough recipe I have tried before, AND, it has a great shelf life.  My kids have left this play dough out and uncovered for hours and hours this week.  All I usually need to do is kneed it a few times, and recover it and it is good to go.  Gotta love that!  You can view the recipe here.

5)  Wedgets
The whole family had fun playing with wedgits this week.  I have to admit that Doug was much better at building with these than I was. 
I put these out on the shelf in a basket/tray thing, with a building board, and a few of the easier design cards to give them some ideas.  The kids didn't care much for the building board or the design cards.  They had a lot more fun just building with them on their own. 


Nature Study:
We went on two nature walks this week.  The first was throgh a wooded area and then metro garden.  The second trip was a visit exploring a stream.  You can read about our adventures and why we study nature here.

Litterature & Reading with Mommy:
You've heard of Oprah's book club right?  Well, Sophia and Marcus have their own little book club .  I let them pick the books they want to read during the week.  Here are their picks for this week.   You can check out their past choices by looking at the "weekly reading" labeled entries. 

Field Trips:
We also went on a field trip to the post office.   We actually did this a few weeks ago, but couldn't blog about it until now because I didn't want to give my grandparents a chance to read their letters before they had a chance to open them!  :)   

We were reading in the book What Do People Do All Day by Richard Scary about how post offices work. 

Fantastic Book! 

The kids decided that they wanted to receive some mail of their own.  I told them that in order to receive mail, they needed to write a letter to someone.  So we wrote to their great grandma and grandpa.   I let them pick the colors of paper and marker that they wanted to use.  On one side they drew them a picture  (Their "writing")  and on the other side they dictated a letter for me to write to them.

Here are Sophia's letters:

Sophia drew some pictures for Great Grandma and Grandpa

Sophia (aka She-She) then dictated what she wanted to write to Grandma and Grandpa.  These letters cracked me up.  My favorite line is "You're Grandma.  I She-She." I like this in a letter, sometimes we need simple reminders like this.   I also thought her letter to Grandpa was very sweet.    Also, can you tell that she likes Winnie the Pooh?  :)

Here are Marcus's letters:

Marcus took "writing a letter" very literally and literally wrote the letter M on one page.  The orange page is what he said was the "number 10".  I don't see it, but that is what he says he wrote.

Unlike Sophia, Marcus did not beat around the bush in his letters.  He got right to the point and asked his Grandparents to "write him back". 

Here are some snaps of taking the kids to the post office to mail their letters.  Sure I could have just put the flag up on our mail box...but this was more fun.

Art:
I found some Easel Art Pages on the blog "Making Learning Fun".  The idea is that kids paint simple objects by following graphic instructions.  I printed out an apple to go with our theme.  (Also becasue an apple is one of the more simple designs to print.)  Marcus showed no interest in wanting to paint on the easel.  Sophia was very eager to try this.

I laid out three baby food jars filled with red, green, and brown paint.  I also gave her three matching paint brushes so the colors would stay separate.  

Here is Sophia and the apple that she painted in the background.  If you can tell, she tried to paint a red circle, a brown stem, and a green leaf. 

I honestly regret introducing this art project to her.   I showed her how to follow the instruction and paint the apple.  (Which she did.)  But it seemed to take a lot of the joy out of her painting.  Before she would just go wild and cover the board with dripping paint.  But after I showed her the instructions she seemed to second guess everything she painted and wanted to know if it was "right" or not.  That kind of made me sad.  So I have decided that I like the unstructured art activities a lot more for now.  I won't be doing another one of these easel projects for awhile.  I would rather her just have fun and experiment with the process of painting at this age.

Well, if you have made it this far..  CONGRATULATIONS!!  Sorry for such a long post, but we had lots and lots of fun to share. 

Also, please check out the Ultimate Alphabet Craft Collection on my blog.  It is a collective of many, many great ideas for teaching children letter recognition and sounds.

To see what other tots have been doing this week, please visit this blog here.

Thanks for reading!!