For the Birds– Birding & Resource List

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 4 Comments

Bird watching with tiny ornithologists is no easy feat.
There is a constant flood of noise trumpeting our arrival minutes before we reach the glades that hold our most sought after birds. They often take flight before we even get there. Chances are, if we venture out of the house in search of a specific bird and preschoolers are in tow, we won’t have much luck.

So we learned to look for signs of birds around us. Discovering their nests, learning about their feeding habits, watching for patterns in their departures and returns to the neighborhood. We set up bird feeders in our trees and left colorful yarn in the back hollow for the birds to use when building their nests.

We stopped to listen.

Because we slowed down we heard the tiny chirps of baby cardinals tucked high in the limbs of our jasmine tree. We were there the day the nest tumbled down after a particularly bad storm. We scooped up the nest and quickly tucked it back in place.
We started collecting abandoned nests in the late summer once the squirrels started knocking them down from the trees.

We know where the owl lives in the back hollow. Its small and brown and we love to look for its pellets. His head can rotate in the most alarming ways.

When the baby mockingbirds flew away from their nest, we peaked inside and found one egg that never hatched. Frail and small; blue and perfectly speckled. Dwarfed when held next to one of our chicken’s eggs. We marveled at it.

The gaggle of ibis that frequent our yard, their long hooked beaks and funny legs probing the grass. They’ll hunt for bugs alongside our chickens.

The flash of bashful pink under the pines when the roseate spoonbill comes to visit.

Sandhill cranes, poking around the fence, stretching to their full height of 3-4 feet, look like nosy neighbors. The Gladys Kravitz of the bird world.

Our proximity to the Everglades provides us with a wide variety of birds to watch in our own yard if we simply sit down and look up. Peregrine falcons, hawks, and other raptors abound out here. We are even visited with some frequency by a beautiful bald eagle. We hear the loud screeches of these raptors as they close in on their prey. We find remnants of their meals on the ground beneath the towering pines near the orchard. The back end of a rabbit. The head of a small bird. A gutted fish.

Tell me about the robin’s nest? Where is it located? What is the nest made of? What does the robin eat? We discovered these answers over days of rambling about the farm, remembering to keep our eyes and ears open. Pirate raids and jousting tournaments put on pause when we heard the familiar call of the blue jay that lives in the oak tree. We watched the epic battles between the jays and mockingbirds unfold before our very eyes. Quick turns out to the yard after breakfast to stop and listen under a nest teeming with young. We watched them grow up and fly away.

We spent time writing down the things we saw and when we saw them. Recording our findings helped us to see the patterns. The exquisite formula of nature.

Two weeks ago we drove to a bird trail and found the gates locked. The boys were terribly disappointed. As we slowly drove home along the canal, we encountered a large stork, lit up by the early morning rays, a long snake dangling from his beak. I stopped the car and we stared at him in silence as he slowly slurped the snake down his throat like spaghetti. Nature always finds us, even on days when we are turned away at the gate.

Yet the boys were determined to begin their own birding expeditions away from our yard. So I set about slowly teaching the boys how to birdwatch on the trail.

We started out by reading “Take a Backyard Bird Walk” by Jane Kirkland. This is a fantastic introduction to the world of birding. How to find nests, learning about habits and migration, even learning how to determine what a bird eats based on the shape of its bill. There are blank pages for observation notes. This is not a book for bird identification but rather a birding “how to.” Truly, a great find that cements birding in the backyard and helped transition us to birding on the trails.

A few other books have sat on our school table, providing information and vocabulary tools for any curious passersby.

Along with the house favorite Fandex….

We started with our native birds. Two at a time. We loaded our ark with knowledge in this way. We drew pictures and watched quick youtube videos about each bird. We squinted up into the sky in search of them.

We learned how to pack for our nature hikes. I learned to always bring a snack for the loudest preschooler. It keeps him quiet and out of trouble. I recommend our recipe for Audobonbons.
We record our findings and remember to check in with our local Audubon Society for help identifying unknown birds we encounter. Birding with littles can be challenging. Teaching children to be purposeful in their nature walks is challenging too. Both are incredibly fun and rewarding.
What started out as a brief unit study for My Father’s World Adventures in US History has become a lifestyle habit. We observe and record birds. They are familiar to us. They are part of our life rhythm here on the farm. Birding teaches us to classify, record, relate, recall, and dialogue. It is now an integral part of nature study for us.

Here are a few other tools and resources we use in our ongoing bird study.

Booklist:
Mama built a Nest by Jennifer Ward
Birds, Nests and Eggs by Mel Boring
Feathers, Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart
What Makes a Bird a Bird? by Mary Garelick
A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins
About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sills
The Bird Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
Feathers for Lunch by Lois Elhert (great for the littles!)
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton W Burgess
Beaks! by Sneed B. Colard III
An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston
Birdsong by Audrey Wood
Our Yard is Full of Birds by Anne Rockwell
Two Blue Jays by Anne Rockwell

Activities:
Bird Bingo: A family favorite! There is also this version which features lovely hand drawn illustrations instead of pictures.
Lego Birds Model Kit: Bluejay, Hummingbird and Robin. They come with stands and a little sign inscribed with their latin names.
Bird Printables: I discovered these gorgeous printables off the delightful homeschool blog Chaos Meets Creativity. We used our printables around the house on a rainy day. I perched them on picture frames or high on shelves. The boys took their toilet paper roll binoculars and practiced spotting them an identifying them.
State Birds & Flowers 1000 piece puzzle
Birds of the Backyard 1000 piece puzzle
Backyard Birds toob: We always use our 40% off coupons at Hobby Lobby for these. They work in sensory bins, working with ordinal numbers or color sorting, and we love to make homes for them out of playdoh.

Online Resources:
Xeno Canto: The largest online collection of bird sounds
550 North American Bird Calls: specific to N.A.
All About Birds: Learn how to listen to and identify, bird calls. Browse the rest of the site for great information on birds!
10000 Birds:Loaded with info on birding and conservation
Nature Songs: More North American bird calls
Where do you want to go Birding today?: Database of the best place to go birding worldwide
There are some websites with bird calls specific to each state.
Florida
Wisconsin
Lots more if you do a google search of your state + birds!

MFW Adventures: More States & Birds + Evaluations

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

It’s Fall inside ya’ll!!!

Confession: I love autumn when its actually autumn, but I’ve never been a big fan of decorating for fall when it looks like the the height of summer outside. Yet my boys love decorating, so this is the week when I show them love by hauling out the box of fall decorations from the boiling hot garage and then spend hours of my life tossing fabric leaves on every available surface of my home. Sigh.

Now autumn themed food? I can get on board with that at any time of year. My pumpkin bread will never ever be as good as my Mom’s bread, but that doesn’t stop me from tossing a sub-par loaf in the oven now and then. It smells good enough to draw in one or two kids. Beggars can’t be choosers. Oh the joy of reading “Farmer Boy” around a plate of warm mediocre pumpkin bread! Tea time is 30% better these days.

Week 15 arrived and I realized that we were almost halfway done with Adventures. We are having fun and time is flying fast! Not as fast as the birds outside when they hear us coming, but close enough. I wanted to spend some time evaluating our homeschool life now that we are nearing the halfway mark. Here’s what happened this week…

On Monday morning my son quipped, “Guess we are in for another round of birds and states!” and so we were. You can read all about how we study the states and birds here.

We added a few great elements this week that my boys enjoyed. Beginning with inspiration from this lovely graphic….
The boys and I started to look around for bird tracks and scat along with feathers and nests. We have found some pretty great stuff so far along with some not so legitimate made up stuff too. (My four year is the King of “Look at this oviraptor egg that I found!”) We are gearing up for a deeper study of animal tracking next week with Daniel Boone, so this was a great introduction. Premeditated Leftovers has a handy dandy article on Bird Unit Study Resources and we used several of those ideas this week.

We are anxiously awaiting our new Birdscapes clear view bird feeder from Amazon. Hopefully feeding the birds straight from our window will provide us with plenty of bird watching opportunities. We decided to wait one more week before decorating our tree for the birds. A low key schedule next week will provide ample time for bird viewing so we can reap the rewards of our hard work! The boys are eagerly planning out bird treats, designing shelters and building additional feeders. We’ve picked a tree close to the house but far from walkways. (No sunflower seed enhanced poo poo on my sidewalk, thank you!) The tree is situated near a large thicket of thorny flowering plants which already house many birds. We’ll be posting updates of our Bird Tree along with our upcoming Bird Watching post!

I’ve been training Team A to take more initiative and responsibility with their school work. Teaching time management is a taxing but worthy effort. Some days the boys decide to forgo our block schedule rhythm and finish all their work quickly in order to spend the remainder of the day outside. My boys are starting to recognize how and when they work best. I don’t think I really learned that about myself until halfway through college! I’m thankful they have the opportunity to evaluate those things now.

This week they flew through their work in the early morning hours and then rushed outside to play the day away. They played with mud, sticks, puddles, grass, stringy moss, leaves and pine needles. I assumed they were just making an enormous mess and having fun. After a few hours my son invited me over and explained what they were working on.

“We are watching the water flow from the top of the crest down into this lower area and figuring out all the ways to break up the stream and make it flow the way we want to. We built the things to stop the water from flowing and doing that created all these little lakes. Then we tested out what things would sink and what things would float. Then we played with the water hose to figure out how much water had to come out at which speed in order to knock down the dams we built. Like a flash flood? And we tried making little mud houses to see if they could stand even against certain levels of water flow. Water always flows downhill, don’t forget. If you stand down there you might think its flowing up towards you, but its not. Its flowing down. Think of the Nile river flowing North. You are North but your elevation is lower so that means our river flows down towards the North. Which reminds me, that puddle is the Sea of Galilee and that little rivulet is the Jordan river and guess where it flows, Mom? The DEAD Sea! We filled it with dead leaves so it wouldn’t get confused with the Sea of Galilee.”

This blew me away. As he spoke I could connect the dots between the years of My Fathers World. Bible stories, science projects, history work, books, and games. Its strange watching MFW K, MFW 1st and MFW Adventures come together in a single moment and then join hands and merrily skip away. I tuck these moments away and reflect on them in the moments when the world tries to bring doubt into our classroom. When the devil whispers that what we are doing is not enough, that the kids don’t know enough, that I am not enough; I silence those whispers with the moments of affirmation God gives me. Those precious moments I can look back on, reach out to cup in my hands and then spill out like little pearls before God as I thank Him for His faithfulness. He called me to homeschool. He is equipping me daily. He is even encouraging me while I stand in the heat, swatting mosquitoes and listening to my eldest bubble up knowledge that feels outrageously beautiful to him.

Here is the plain truth of my homeschool life at the close of week 15: My rough and tumble boys are thriving with their gentle education. Its not perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect in order for them to thrive. In fact, I think they are thriving because our homeschool is not perfect.

Because the preschooler threw tantrums in the classroom this morning, we ran away to the park and had a beautiful morning.

Because I forgot to print out our language arts cards, we stayed even longer since we didn’t have a reason to rush home.

Because I lost my temper in a flood of sinful anger, I had the opportunity to apologize to my boys under the shade of this beautiful tree. We got to talk about grace again and it reminded us of this week’s Bible verse and before I knew it, we were talking about the Tabernacle and the Temple and the mighty curtain torn asunder and we were all breathing in gratitude together.

Because MFW is gentle with my children, it reminds me to be gentle with myself. Gentle with my expectations and the demands I put upon myself as a wife, mother and teacher. I recite Isaiah 40:11 to myself quite often, “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

He is gentle with us!

I never expected that one of the defining words of their childhood would be “gentle.” And yet there it is, coexisting with other defining words/phrases like: “muddy, messy, adventure, accident-prone, projectile vomit, projectile everything else, stories, farming,therapy, insects, confidence, legos, bravery.”

“Gentle” is the umbrella that covers all the other words.

I am so thankful for that.

MFW Adventures: States & Birds

September 30, 2015September 30, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 4 Comments

We are loving our tour through the United States.

The boys memorized all fifty states and capitols last year during Cycle 3 of Classical Conversations. They also tackled all the geographical features and memorized many different important pieces of American History in their weekly History sentences. I’ve loved watching all this information burst out of them at different points this year.

I was initially worried that the State Study would not be enough on its own for them. But once again, turns out what MFW has prepared is more than sufficient!

I comb-bound all our state sheets into one notebook for each boy and purchased a special set of Prismacolor colored pencils. The boys know these pencils are very special (aka mucho dinero) and are only to be used with our state sheets. I love seeing the special care they have taken with these new tools. Its made them work carefully and their trademark little boy sloppiness has diminished greatly as the days pass. They are eager to shade their state birds just so and capture the exact color of each state flower.

While the boys work on their State Sheets and Lego State creations, I read from various books. We have been using the suggested book list from MFW, but I have also incorporated a book of collected poems by Lee Bennet Hopkins entitled, “My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States.” I also try and include readings from a few poets or authors hailing from the states we are studying. We usually glean these authors from the list of state poet laureates. (PS There are FIVE states with Official State Poems). Lastly, I read the next book off of our Beautiful Feet Books list. I will be posting our list and references soon so be on the lookout! We’ve read so many wonderful new books in the last two weeks. Its fun watching the boys play “raise the barn” or make knick knacks around the house to sell at Portsmouth Market like the Ox-Cart man.

Some days the reading outlasts the work at hand. On those days the boys rush to pull out their much adored US History Geo puzzle. Some days the work outlasts the reading. On those days I rush to find a bottle of my much adored Essie nail polish.

The littles stay engaged by coloring their own states sheets and then making states out of play doh. Other times they prefer to stick with their own motor skill/sensory play activities.

I have honestly spent more time in the last two weeks preparing activities for the younger boys to engage with so that our older boys can focus well on their work. Of course, this means that when the older boys finish their work they rush over to see what their younger siblings are up to and the join in the play!

Our study of birds is progressing beautifully. I am in love with this portion of Adventures! Having the Everglades nearby blesses us with a large variety of birds year round. This gentle introduction of state birds has blossomed into a new hobby for my children.We’ve started collecting feathers and nests. The eldest has asked for several new books on Audubon’s life. We are eager to learn about the birds in our area and are planning a field trip to our local Audubon base. Pretty much everyone was happy… until they realized we would not be making a delicious chocolate nest treat every single time we studied a new bird. Oh, the drama!

Training the boys to observe nature quietly is not easy. I’ve armed them to the teeth with binoculars, notebooks, cameras and colored pencils, hoping that occupied hands would silence voices that lack volume control. This plan met with mixed success. I finally realized that merging the toddler’s snack time with our nature walks was the way to go!

BEHOLD!!!

A recipe on my blog. This may not ever happen again, so enjoy it….

Audubonbons

Ingredients:
Granola bars
Chocolate Bar
Wax Paper

Step 1: Cut granola bar into bite sized squares.
Step 2: Place granola squares onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper
Step 3: Melt the chocolate bar and drizzle it onto the granola squares
Step 4: Place in fridge until hardened. Or place in freezer as an extra treat for teething toddler or as a tooth loss motivator for your 7 year old and his loose tooth thats been hanging in there for two months without falling out. Sigh.
Step 5: Place in baggie and take along on your nature hike.
Step 6: Hand it to your toddler and say “stick some Audubonbons in your pie hole and let your brother draw the mockingbird!”

Next week, we will be writing up a more thorough look at our bird watching activities. It will most certainly not be a “how to” guide, more like a “don’t you feel better about your nature walk/life in general now?” kinda thing. Tears and laughter abound.

Speaking of life in general. The humidity is starting to dissipate! Its still warm, but its bearable. As in, I no longer feel like I am walking in a can of soup when I walk outside. From this point on, any schooling that can be done outside—will be done outside! Hooray! Time to bust that picnic basket out of storage.

Anyone else adoring “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder? Its inspiring the boys to get even more involved on the farm. Training the new pup to guard the chickens, pulling weeds and helping mark out garden plans. Its going to be a lovely, all hands on deck, kinda Fall!