Project 120: Birds, birds, birds.

As it is our third year of home education, we've found projects start to emerge as annual events. This not only includes religious festivals (e.g., Christmas and Easter), but also competitions (e.g. 500 Words) and coordinated citizen science. This was our third year taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch (see also Project 20: Local Wildlife and Birds, Project 68: Birds of the World).

The week started with our hour bird-watch, and as with previous years, we saw very little. Just one robin this time.

Waiting for the birds

We had a more successful bird watch walking around the local nature reserve, and Solomon was pleased to identify a bullfinch with the help of the bird book.

Spot the Bull(finch)!

We also went to two bird-centred events (one at a home ed group and one at The Green Backyard), so ended up making three different bird feeders this week!

Bird feeders

Other activities included a birdwatch Top Trumps style game, some differentiated reading, and some bird snappers:

Bird snappers

We also got the children to copy some pictures of birds.

Solomon (top) and Monica's (bottom) birds

We also watched the classic feel-good bird-centred movie Fly Away Home, which everyone enjoyed.

Next project: Illustration

Project 68: Birds of the world!

This week's project was dictated in part by a home education workshop on 'Winter Bird Watching and Bird Feeders' that was taking place at Ferry Meadows, the local country park. We have enjoyed a number of local wildlife projects previously(Project 20: Local Wildlife and Birds, Project 51: Pond Life, Project 57: Living things and their habitats), and it's always nice to have a bit more structure when exploring the local wildlife.

The work shop consisted of making some bird feeders, going on a bird spotting walk, and drawing some of the birds they could see.

Apple bird feeders

It's worth noting that the apple and seed bird feeders have not gone down as well as last year's fat balls!

After watching some videos about birds, the classification system,and Carl Linnaeus, as well as the birds episode of Attenborough's Life, we asked the children to pick an order of birds from the Animal encyclopaedia to learn more about and create their own artworks. Monica picked flamingos and Solomon picked parrots. They both loved videos of parrots talking, and we had to find them extra ones to watch.

Tissue paper flamingo and parrot

Unfortunately, the home education workshop on birds came a week before the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, so we do not yet know whether we will spot more than last year's "one measly pigeon", although the children are already looking forward to building their hide.

Next week's project: The Tudors.
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UPDATE 27/01/2019

Once again we took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch - briefly discussing citizen science and building a 'hide' for spotting some birds in the garden. Thankfully it was slightly more successful than last year, with a chaffinch, starling, and collared dove landing in the garden.

Children taking part in the #BigGardenBirdwatch

Submitting our most successful year!