A Glimpse of Natural History

As part of our school curriculum we are reading a book called The Burgess Bird Book for Children. We just finished a lovely experience with this book today and so I thought I'd write it up here to see again later.

There is kind story through the book in which Peter Rabbit finds out much about the birds from his observations and from talking with Jenny Wren. But really most of the chapters can be read in any old order and the story makes sense just fine. With this in mind, at the beginning of the year I circled all the birds that are common where we live. We observe these birds on our nature walks or out of our windows in the yard or at the feeder. We've been doing that since the Year 0 season. When we read I often give him a choice, "do you want to hear about Sammy Jay or the Mourning Dove?" Then just check off (in pencil of course )what we've read.

Before we read, I quickly google a couple pictures of the bird(s), maybe their nests, sometimes a coloring page if they want, we're about to read about. Sometimes I look up a video too. These are expecially important if the bird is one that we haven't seen much of.

Today we read the chapter about the Osprey and Bald Eagle. The children asked for coloring pages today. I found lovely images via google. We've never seen an osprey before but last winter a bald eagle sat high in a tree and watched us sled riding at the neighborhood park. The children were thrilled with this chapter. They loved hearing how the osprey dove into the water for the fish. Just before I read about the eagle I stopped and showed them a youtube video of osprey diving for fish.

Then narration. When I ask my student to narrate the chapter I ask him to think about what he's learned about the bird.

Then the eagle part of the story. In which we held our breath waiting to see who would end up with the fish. Then narration again.

We finished with a video of an eagle stealing a fish from an osprey.

We don't always, or even usually, take this much time with BBB. Usually just a part. But the various pieces have left the book fascinating for us and curious to make more of our own observations or see for ourselves what we have heard.

Love of nature according to CM is caught more than taught. I've had to first train myself to love God's creation. Birds are so interesting and they're everywhere. You just have to stop for a minute to look a little closer than you otherwise might have.

Peacefully BuZzInG!
Misty