May 11, 2022

Bird Unit 2022

This unit grew into a month long unit… part of this is because I planned one last year that we didn’t fully get into and part of this is it was just so fun! We did a lot this unit and genuinely loved birding, nature walks, and taking care of the birds in our own backyard. Here’s the activities and resources we used in our bird unit this time around.

Backyard Birds (Safari)

These have been a hit for I think three years now? The girls both love them. We used them for language objects for the tot (learning bird names), hands on play, matching work (with cards), and as a refresher for the backyard birds for our oldest.

0-9 Clip Cards

Number Clip Cards are chosen more often in our home (at this time) when they are rotated frequently. We are still working on consistently recognizing and writing numbers. This is a fun way to review in addition to the traditional materials. This set is from the Summer 2021 Mega Bundle I grabbed and is by My Montessori Hub.

Initial Sound Clip Cards

This is similar to an activity we have on the shelves. I think it would be more fun if we had made a set of our own backyard birds or birds that she was more familiar with. We had to double check the names in a few of this set a couple times when we first got going but the second and third time we didn’t need to that often! This set is from the Summer 2021 Mega Bundle I grabbed and is by My Montessori Hub.

Parts of a Bird 3 Part Cards

This activity was fun the first time around for my preschooler (age 4) but she is pretty familiar with the parts of the bird so this wasn’t chosen off the shelf on her own after the initial presentation (although she had fun reviewing it!). We may have played the memory game with it but I am thinking she chose types of birds each time. This set is from the Summer 2021 Mega Bundle I grabbed and is by My Montessori Hub.

Montessori Inspired Matching Cards (Birds Close Up)

You can see this on the left side. The three part cards on the right are the parts of the bird.

This was a FUN matching activity. Challenging enough for my preschooler (who isn’t big into matching work anymore). She even self selected this work at least once during work cycle. This set is from the Summer 2021 Mega Bundle I grabbed and is by My Montessori Hub.

Types of Birds (we had a few sets)

We may have gone over board on all the different types of bird cards we have… we have the backyard bird cards from Tanglewood Hallow, Sibley Backyard Bird Flashcards, another set from Every Star is Different, and then we also had our reference guides. BUT I am glad I went ahead and printed all of these because the girls absolutely loved these. I didn’t do them all as three part cards, more for exploring but some of them we did print that way and used for the memory matching game we’ve been into.

Birds Nest Poster & Three Part Cards

This is from Green Urban Creative. I’ve had them for a couple of years but we haven’t pulled them out until now. They are visually appealing and draw the child in. I love everything I have every purchased from this shop! We did nests in a our final week of the bird unit.

Male and Female Bird Matching Cards

This is from Every Star is Different in their subscriber freebie called, Bird Unit Science and Culture Printable Pack. This was fun! There were a couple she was familiar with but most of these were new and very fun for both girls to explore. We played the memory matching game with these as well.

Anatomy of a Feather

This was fun! We got this printable from Green Urban Creative last year and didn’t end up doing a full bird unit. I didn’t hand up all our posters right away. I did some each week so that they were fresh. I hung this one up on the second week of our bird unit and the girls were immediately drawn to it.

Feather Tracing Work

We got this printable from Green Urban Creative as well. I printed it on cardstock and laminated it so that we could use it over and over with our wax crayons or dry erase markers. It was a hit with both girls. Great practice with cursive letters.

How Many Eggs Hatched?

This was actually a printable from Every Star is Different’s subscriber freebies called Spring is Here Math Printable BUT when I went to do the activity I couldn’t find it anywhere so I had to make our own on the fly. Little Miss enjoyed sounding out the words as I wrote them (the first time) so I am actually glad that it worked out this way because this turned into more than a math activity. We chose 6 birds to write out, then we set up our graph, and rolled the die to see how eggs hatched in each bird’s nest.

After that, we added up the totals for each type of bird using our color beads and recorded our findings. This activity took longer than most that we do together but she was really into it. We worked on sounds, writing, counting, graphing, and addition… ALL in one lesson! This was one that she chose more than once as well. We just focused on the math element the next two times.

Robin Nest Sequencing Pictures

This was something that my tot was initially more interested in than my preschooler but after we were done, Little Miss had to come over and put them in order a couple of times for herself. Maybe she just wanted to work it independently?

This printable also came from Every Star is Different’s Spring is Here Math Printable Pack in their subscriber freebies.

Addition Number Clip Cards

We actually didn’t get to this activity until we came back after break but it was a big hit!

Initially I had planned to do some bird themed counters or stones with these cards to count but Little Miss is pretty into her color beads right now so we grabbed those. This was a great addition activity!

This printable also came from Every Star is Different’s Spring is Here Math Printable Pack in their subscriber freebies.

Subtraction Number Clip Cards

This printable also came from Every Star is Different’s Spring is Here Math Printable Pack in their subscriber freebies. We didn’t actually get to this one this time around. We took our time with addition and haven’t gotten to subtraction work yet.

Anatomy of an American Robin

We did a Robin Unit for a little over one week of our Bird Unit this time around. We’ve been really into robins and I saw this unit on Stephanie Hathaway’s site and I am so glad we grabbed it. We watched for robins as an early sign of spring and were so excited when they began frequenting our yard again. We had a pregnant robin that was in the front yard eating regularly for a few days and it has a nest somewhere near our house… we just aren’t sure where! Anyhow, this anatomy poster was a fun way to build on and add more detail to the parts of the bird three part cards we already worked with earlier in the unit.

Life Cycle of a Robin

We explored the poster first and then the three part cards that came with this unit from Stephanie Hathaway Designs. My oldest is not new to lifecycle work so she mastered this quickly and didn’t select it from the shelf again.

Anatomy of an Egg

This was a part of the American Robin Unit we grabbed. It was a poster that I added when we were ready. One of our books also discusses the parts of the egg so we got this twice. I almost took the time to make a felt version of the parts of an egg but I am not sure she would have selected it much so I am glad I held off.

Count and Clip Cards (Robin Theme)

Like I said earlier in the post. If we rotate out and keep our number clip cards fresh, they remain engaging but if we do not rotate them, they aren’t chosen as often. We might be nearing the end of our interest in them in general though as we continue to progress through the Montessori Math Sequence. This one was also from the American Robin Unit Study.

Poetry (Robin Theme)

I love how Stephanie Hathaway always includes the arts in her unit studies. I read each of these poems during our morning circle time. We have not had poetry reading in our morning circle time for a bit (maybe over a month) so both girls were quite attentive as I read. I love exposing them to different forms of literature (the English major in me is showing 😉 )

Fine Art (Naturalism and Realism/Robin Theme)

We used this towards the end of our bird unit and then created our own art (on different days) that were inspired by naturalism and realism. This time we tried it with paint and it was a hit!

How to Draw a Robin

This year my daughter has really enjoyed a little more structure to her drawing (sometimes!) and painting. She loves seeing the steps of how to draw something and then trying to draw it. I love how this is broken down into small pieces that anyone could use to draw a robin.

DIY Bird Nest

When we were reading, one of our read-a-louds my daughter expressed an interest in building her own bird’s nest. We have an old one that fell out of our tree last year late spring/early summer (after the baby birds were already gone!) and so we are used that as our example. We took mud, sticks, grass, hair, and paper and molded it into a nest shape and used a cup to press down in the center (much like the mother bird would press her breast into the nest). It was fun to create these together.

Hummingbird Feeder + Starting a Trumpet Bush

During our backyard bird focus we spent a day on humming birds. When we did my oldest got excited to make our yard more humming bird friendly. We prepped our humming bird feeder and then hung it. Then made a plan to start a trumpet bush from my parent’s bush. I was way to pregnant at the time so we will circle back around.

DIY Bird House

Last year my daughter put together (with some help) and painted a bird house. This year she sealed it and hung it outside. This was a fun practical life activity for the shelf.

Books

The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman

My Spring Robin by Anne Rockwell

A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins

National Geographic Kids Bird Guide to North America by Jonathan Alderfer

A Nest is Noisy by Dianna Hutts Aston

An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston

Resources

Here are our resources for this unit. Some of this we did not get to yet and will rotate in the next time we do a bird unit! What resources did you use to study birds?