Ornithology...Our Study of Birds

Baby Birds at the Park

 Charlotte Mason suggests that a child of six should be able to identify six varieties of birds.  Birds are a wonderful animal to begin a study of Zoology because most children see them often in their daily activities.  We decided to do a study of birds this summer.  We did really well at the beginning of summer but we ended up being so busy that my boys didn't spend a lot of time with each of these activities.  When I went to photograph them this afternoon before I put them away my boys were drawn back into the work so we will leave it on our shelves for another week or so.

Three part cards I created myself with pictures from Google images.   I got a really good deal on this tray from Alison's Montessori.  I need to go back and order more.

Books We Read

Bird Matching

Bird Memory Game--I believe I printed these last two from Montessori Print Shop for free.

Parts of a Bird Puzzle

My boys loved flipping through this book or just listening to bird calls as they did their work.

I was thrilled when we went to Suzuki camp and found that the movement class was all about birds!  I love it when things just seem to fall into place.  They were singing songs about birds, dancing like birds, and listening to music from Carnival of the Animals.  They pretended to be the Cuckoos in The Syncopated Clock. This is a page from a Classical Music For Kids book, Carnival of the Animals by Saint Sans. It came with a recording and my boys love it. 

Parts of a Bird 3-Part Cards-I made these from an online Montessori Training Course I signed up for but you could probably find some at MontessoriForEveryone or Montessori PrintShop.

Parts of Bird Books-These came from the same source.

Painting birdhouses from the dollar store.

Placing them in the garden.

My favorite part of this unit was our study of John James Audubon but I will reserve this for another post.