Week 1: Birds

Birds. Are. AWESOME!

They fly, they’re brightly colored, they make amazing sounds. There is just SO much to learn about birds!

The lesson outlines for each day are below. On Monday, be sure to tune into the Facebook Live Video, but all of the other activities are optional. Try them all, try just some, it’s up to you!

Here’s the PDF download for all of the lesson details of this week.

Need extra ideas to keep kiddo busy? We’ve got you covered. Check out our Safer and Funner pages for more.

Monday

Kicking off camp, connecting with nature, and getting started on our bird adventure.

Mystery bird #1. Can you figure out what this bird is? Use your field guide, look closely at the beak, crest, and other field marks. Can you tell if this bird is a male or a female? The answer is at the bottom of the page. Photo by Patricia Pierce, Flickr Creative Commons.

  1. Facebook Live Video: Carolyn kicks off camp with a video introducing birds. Watch it live on our Facebook page at 1pm (the feed will start automatically). After the live lesson we’ll post the link here so you can watch it later.

  2. Art: Start a nature journal. You’ll need about 20 pages: if you’re folding computer paper in half and stapling it, use at least 10 sheers. If you’re really excited about writing and drawing, make yours bigger. Then decorate it!

  3. Learn more about nature journaling: Visit our webpage about it, read these lessons plans, or watch Nature Journaling for Kids (32 mintues), a video lesson the Carolyn made teaching kids how to start a nature journal.

  4. Connect: Find a special place that you’ll return to throughout camp, and do a Sit Spot.

  5. Scavenger hunt: Explore your neighborhood and find a bird with black on it, a bird with red on it, and a bird with yellow on it. If you’ve found these, think of other colors you could see on birds and find those too. Add this to your nature journal if you like.

  6. Nature journal prompt: Draw or write about your favorite bird or your “spark” bird (the bird that got you excited about birdwatching and nature). 

Tuesday

Learning to identify

Mystery bird #2: This is a common bird that’s being a little sneaky. This bird usually has a crest on its head, but the bird is holding it close to its head. Can you ID it? Photo credit: Kristin “Shoe” Shoemaker, Flickr Creative Commons.

  1. Optional screen time: Bird ID for kids: a video lesson that Carolyn made teaching kids all about field marks and identifying birds. 51 minutes. For beginners!

  2. Explore the Madison Audubon Bird Guide for Kids: Flip or scroll through the guide. Which birds do you recognize and which birds are new? Find a cool fact to share with a friend or relative.

  3. Bird scavenger hunt: Walk through your neighborhood or local natural area. Try to find a bird & identify it. Can’t get outside today? Look out a window or use the Cornell Feeder Cams.

  4. Nature walk list: If you’re already a pro at identifying the easy birds, try going on a nature walk and keeping a list of all of the birds you see. Can you find more than 10 different species?

  5. Nature Journal Prompt: Draw or write about the bird you saw OR a bird you wish you saw

  6. Art prompt: Draw a picture of yourself or a family member, talk or write about their “field marks”

Wednesday

Bird song

Mystery Bird #3: This is one of my favorite neighborhood birds. Look closely at its head and the colors under its tail. Can you tell if this bird is a male or female? Photo credit: Kenneth Cole Schneider, Flickr Creative Commons.

  1. Optional screen time: Bird song ID for kids: a video lesson that Carolyn made to teach kids about identifying bird song. It’s just over an hour long.  

  2. Learn some songs: Listen to the song of a chickadee, jay, crow, robin. You can find these and other bird sounds at either the Cornell Lab website or National Audubon’s website. Try to find them singing outside. 

  3. Bird scavenger hunt: Find a bird making noise, find a bird being quiet, find a bird singing. Bonus: find a bird in a tree. Use your Urban Tree Guide to identify the tree that the bird is in.

  4. Point counts (for older kids): Scientists use something called “point counts” when they study birds. You can do your own! Pick a place (your backyard, your sit spot, somewhere in your favorite park). This is your “point”. Bring your nature journal, a pencil, and a timer (if you have binoculars, you can bring them too!). Sit still for 2 minutes. This will let all of the birds adjust to your presence. Then, start your timer for 5 minutes. Count all of the birds you see or hear during that 5 minutes. You can do another point count at a different spot or a different time. What is the same about the two counts, what is different? Do you see or hear the same birds?

  5. Nature Journal Prompt: Make a list of all of the birds you hear in your nature journal. Which are new for you?  

  6. Creative: Make a short play (puppets, family members) of birds. Use “bird language” to tell the story: calls, songs, other noises. How will you make a bird sound happy/sad/angry? What happens in your play to make the birds sound that way?

Thursday

Signs of birds

Mystery bird #4: This little bird is a fun garden visitor. The beak shape and blurry wings should help you identify it. Can you tell if it is a male or female? How? Photo credit: Patricia Pierce, Flickr Creative Commons.

  1. Optional screen time: Nests are neat, a video lesson for kids made by Carolyn (1 hour).  

  2. Learn about nest building: Check out the Into the Nest blog series Carolyn wrote. Begin with “Let’s Build a Nest”: there are two short videos of birds building nests that are super cool.

  3. Bird scavenger hunt: Find a bird’s nest, find a woodpecker hole, a feather, a bird footprint, a bird eggshell. Be sure to not disturb the nest if it is active! What do each of these signs tell you about the birds that were there? If you can’t find any signs of birds, why do you think that is? Record these observations in your nature journal if you like.

  4. Creative: Build your own nest using either natural things or human things. Try it with your thumbs taped to your hands.

  5. Nature Journal Prompt: Write about what kind of nest you would want to live in. Where is it? What is it made of? What does it look like?

Friday

Bird Adaptations

Mystery bird #5: This bird is often found hanging upside down on a tree trunk. It also visits bird feeders to find sunflower seeds or suet. Can you identify it? Photo credit: Dennis Church.

  1. Optional screen time: Bird Adaptations & build a bird video (45 minutes) or Bird Skulls are Cool (50 minutes), both videos by Carolyn exploring all of the cool adaptations that birds have.

  2. Field guide: Flip through your Madison Audubon Bird Guide (or any other field guide you have handy). Try to find 5 different types of bird beaks, feet, necks, and legs. What else is different about these birds?

  3. Bird scavenger hunt: Find two birds with different shaped beaks, find two birds with different shaped feet, find two birds with different shaped wings. Think of a bird part (beak, wings, feet) that you’d like to find someday.

  4. Creative: Create your own imaginary bird with our Build-a-bird lesson. What will it eat? Where will it live? You tell us! Use all of the things you learned today about different bird parts and what they’re used for to build an imaginary bird. Either draw your bird in your nature journal, or print-cut-paste these bird parts to make a birdy mash-up!

  5. Nature journal prompt: Write something you wonder about bird beaks.

  6. Sit spot: What kinds of birds do you hear or see during this sit spot? Can you identify any new ones since your sit spot on Monday?

Header photo: Can you identify these huge birds? Hint: they’re not in the Madison Audubon Bird Guide for Kids. Header photo by Arlene Koziol.

Mystery bird answers: 1- Northern Cardinal (female), 2 - Blue Jay (can’t tell if its male or female from feathers alone), 3- Gray Catbird, 4 - Ruby-throated Hummingbird (female), 5 - White-breasted Nuthatch (male). How many did you identify?