Glad To Be a Gladden: Week 26 - Homeschool Preschool

This week was for the birds! Literally! We did a study on nesting birds because guess what people?! Spring is upon us!!! Woooo!! We read SO MANY MANY MANY books in full this week including a beaucoup of bird books to learn and understand these beauties of God's creation. We already have a couple of bird feeders near our kitchen windows where we can sit and eat our meals and watch the birds. But this study gave me the perfect excuse to finally purchase a window bird feeder I've had on my Amazon wish list for months!! It is so popular with the Finches and Chipping Sparrows, I need to get a second! We also made a few bird feeders out of bagels, PB, and bird seed. We set them near all the other bird feeder action and watched, each of us with our binoculars, telling each other excitedly, "Shhh! A bird!!" If we didn't know what type, we would note the characteristics and look it up. Ellie learned her state bird is the Carolina Wren. She also asked me to research the Georgia state bird. That happens to be the Brown Thrush. Ellie lovessssss asking questions and having me do research. This. is. LEARNING Y'all!!! I so love homeschool!!

We studied the different types of wings, tails, bills, feet, sizes, and colors and sounds each bird makes. We found the BEST book on Amazon of backyard bird songs and it taught us both to identify not just with the eyes but with the ears as well.

We learned not all mother birds laying eggs are good mothers. Some, such as the Cuckoo and Cowbirds, lay their eggs in OTHER bird nests and leave them to be raised by the other mother bird who built the nest for her own babies! Often too, the abandoned baby birds are even bigger as babies than their adoptive adult mother bird! Crazy sauce.

We studied different collected feathers, counted them, sorted them by size, and noted how lightweight even the largest feather was.

We built our own bird nest with items collected on a nature walk. We even decorated it with dandelions then placed mock eggs inside and played with figurine birds.

For a bird themed snack, we used pretzel sticks, fondue chocolate, and Cadbury Easter milk chocolate eggs to make a nest!

We were fortunate enough this week to discover a Canadian goose egg had been laid near our dock and we have been observing the geese behavior since our discovery.

In our screen porch, a Chipping Sparrow flew in and got confused as to how to get out. Ellie without any struggle managed to carefully scoop up the bird, hold it delicately and we were able to really study its colors, feet, bill, head colors, and how soft and small it was. Then cautiously and carefully we helped it find its way out and watched it fly away.

One day we took a trip to Happy Cow for a family date for ice cream and cow gazing. As we sat and enjoyed ourselves, we observed a bird in the gutter of the shed we were beside with nesting materials in his beak. We watched him fly back and forth around the farm gathering and depositing the materials. Then Mrs. Italian Sparrow checked in to oversee the expectant father's work. He was a hard working little fellow!

Are you really homeschooling if you aren't playing games to learn?! We love games and books around this house! I purchased the game, "Bird Bingo" on amazon and it was a HIT with Ellie!!! We played like 5 rounds of Bingo. This game truly helps with identification and also recognizing words and observation skills. This was fun family bonding time too! I love it!! There are other animal species and such in this game series you can find as well, by the way.

We are still studying our Artist, Vincent Van Gogh. In our forest school curriculum, we always study classic art and poetry to go along with our focus. This week's painting was one by Van Gogh! So Ellie painted her own version noting the darker colors and shadows used by Van Gogh, the nests, and the eggs. She truly took time to pause, study, and apply her observations to her own paper. I was so proud of her dedication to her work.

Ellie painted a bird feeder and decorated it to put out near her playhouse in the backyard.

We went to forest school with our friends and did our nature walk, read, watched and listened for birds, and learned quite a lot!

Ellie and I made a note of all the birds we saw this week:

-Mourning Dove

-Carolina Wren

-Northern Cardinal

-Female Northern Cardinal

-House Finch

-Northern Mocking bird

-Chipping Sparrow

-Eastern Bluebird

-Woodpecker

-Canadian Geese

-Mallard (male)

-Italian Sparrow (male and female)

-Great Blue Heron

Nature walk finds:

Lots of outdoor play and sunshine! Warm enough for the kiddie pool!!

Thankful for signs of Spring, Ellie used our hot glue gun and made an Easter wreath with some pretty glittery eggs! She LOVED this craft! I love how awesome she is with the hot glue gun!

We made a sensory bin of rainbow colored rice. In it, I hid 5 laminated golden coins for a bit of a treasure hunt. Each coin had a letter of Ellie's name. As she found them, she lined them up to spell out her name! This excited her! Who doesn't love a treasure hunt?!

We made a rainbow fruit and veggie snack and Ellie ate the entire plate full! March is the perfect month to discuss and play to learn the colors of the rainbow!

We READ A MILLION BOOKS!!! Oh the cuddle time was grand!

For "Rainbow Crow," I recalled an activity my first grade teacher did with me. She read us the book then in class made us each some rainbow toast! I don't recall how she prepared it, but I improvised. We toasted the bread, buttered it with our own homemade butter, then stating the colors of the rainbow in order, we dyed the bread with food color. Purple is not a lipstick shade Ellie should ever wear....😂😂😂

Fine motor skills, attention span increasing play: Threading pipe cleaners of different size and texture through a colander.

Music and movement time! We played band. I laid out every single musical instrument we had on the table (well except the piano of course,) and told Ellie to have at it. She smiled, and ran her fingers across her instruments. She chose different things and tested them out. Then, she would begin a beat and tell me to grab and particular instrument and join her. She tapped her feet and she lead me in music. She would give commands, "Play soft and quiet! Play loud! Play fast! Tap like this, Do like this!" Exploration and rhythm for language perfecting and promoting skills for the win!! She has access to her musical toys all the time, but there was something special and intriguing to her by me simply laying them all out and telling her to play me a song. She really got into it the more she played and finally was jumping around , stamping her foot, wiggling her hips and shoulders, and feeling the beat!

Another of our beloved curriculums, Before Five in a Row, lead us to read the book, "My Big Green Pocketbook." I previously wrote about all the activities we got into this week for that book. Here it is if you want specifics: My Big Green Pocketbook. There was learning of primary colors and making secondary colors, making mixed colors lighter or darker shades, money counting and identifying, cooking, field trip, sewing, etc.