Our Bird Study Culminates in a Family Research

Children are immersed in bird literature, poetry, songs, dances, and – of course – bird watching.   Each child selects a bird to study and goes home with an envelope of books for family research.  A week later the children return with a book they have written and illustrated about their special bird.

Wings
Bees have four wings, birds have two…
Aileen Fisher

Birds of a feather flock together.

May Wind is Busy
Brushing the robin’s tail…
Kazue Mizumura

A few children each day present their bird report.  Then they enjoy becoming the bird and dancing around the circle in the Indian Wheel song… I am the eagle. I am the eagle. Flying around the wheel.

Sing, Dance, and Dramatize: Engage Multiple Intelligences in Learning

• Enjoy a circle dance: Bluebird, bluebird, fly through my window…
• Sing and sign If I Could Be An Eagle, by Jolene Griffith.
• Dance as the Firebird (A Russian fairy tale) – The Firebird Ballet music, part 23 by Stravinsky, is magnificent!  Give the children red crepe paper streamers to make large circles in the air – they will follow teacher’s movements creating images of this ballet.
• There is depth (and creativity) in the curriculum.
• Northwest Indian legends and dances become a part of the study.
• Children listen to tapes of bird songs – and learn to imitate them.  Did you know that baby songbirds talk baby bird talk and babble while learning to imitate the adult bird song?
• In Joanie Cutler’s magical kindergarten children read, write, dance, and wonder about birds.