I saw a little bird going hop, hop, hop. I said to the bird will you stop, stop, stop. He flew to the window said, "How do you do?". He shook his tail and away he flew.

Making books of birds

Tracing the parts of a bird puzzle

We have begun our studies of the five vertebrates with the study of birds. We talked about the parts of a bird and did writing work to make a book or traced the parts of a bird puzzle to make our own diagram of the parts of a bird.While doing this work, we were also strengthening our pincer grips by tracing the puzzle pieces and coloring, we added many bird names and words to our vocabularies, and we practiced careful handwriting. We talked about the characteristics of birds that make them different from the other vertebrates. We also talked about the characteristics of bats that let us know that they are mammals and not birds. There was a listening center with headphones on the science table for listening to real bird sounds. At circle we read Flute's Journey: The Life of Wood Thrush by Lynne Cherry. It is the story of a young wood thrush's first migration-across thousands of miles-from his nesting ground to his winter home in Costa Rica.

Listening to bird songs

We hung several bird feeders around the school.

The squirrels appreciated the bird feeders too.

Stone Soup

"Soup from a stone, fancy that!"

Several different versions of Stone Soup were read to the class during afternoon circle. Included were versions by Ann McGovern, Jon J. Muth, and The Real Story of Stone Soup  by Ying Chang Compestine.

During writing time we wrote our own recipes for stone soup and we drew our favorite meal on a paper plate and wrote about it. After writing time we came together for a circle to share our drawings with everyone.

Finally Stone Soup Day arrived! 

We scrubbed the stones that we collected the previous afternoon. 

We collected all of the ingredients that were brought by our friends. 

We washed and chopped the vegetables and herbs. 

We enjoyed our stone soup meal together! 

Bagel Moon Faces

This morning for cooking time we made bagel moon faces.First we prepared the vegetables. Then we assembled our bagel moon faces. We used cucumbers, carrots, and tomatoes for ears, eyes, a mouth, and a nose. We used sprouts for hair.