Science Experiment – Air Pressure / How Birds Fly

{I have been having the weirdest problems with scheduling posts lately.  You might have seen this post in your reader last week, and then had it disappear if you tried to look at it on the actual blog.  Too much mommy brain + too little coffee = crazy and incompetent.} 

As a final (whew!) bird-related activity, we did a little experiment to show how air pressure works using two balloons.

An experiment and balloons?  It doesn’t get much better than that if you are a 3 year old boy. :)

The way birds are shaped and the way they move their wings causes the air to move more quickly above them.  Quicker-moving air = less air pressure, so the air beneath them exerts the greater pressure and keeps them aloft!

To demonstrate that fast-moving air lowers air pressure, I blew up two small balloons, tied a length of yarn to each one and then hung them from our sofa table so they were level with one another.  You want them to be about 3 inches apart. 

Ask your child to think about what will happen to the balloons if he blows a straight line of air between the two of them.  When we blow directly on an object it moves away from the force of air, so it makes sense (sort of) that the balloons would move apart.  M was sure they would get “wider apart”, as he put it.

Here’s what happens:
They move toward each other and bump!  The still air on the sides of the balloons is exerting more pressure than the fast moving air between them, so it pushes them together! Pretty cool, huh?  ;)

You can do this with a strip of paper that you hold near your bottom lip – blow air directly over it and it should rise.  Or try two cardboard tubes on a table side by side with an inch of room between them; use a straw to blow air directly between them and watch them roll towards one another!

For more science fun with kids, go see Ticia’s Science Sunday posts!

Have a beautiful and blessed Mother’s Day! :)

All About Birds

As we’ve been having our little bird theme, I’ve seen M’s love and understanding of nature blossom.  He has been spending every spare second outside… enjoying being a kid.  He’s gotten more baths in the past 3 weeks than he has in his entire life.  Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but that’s pretty much how it has seemed to me. :)

The first thing he does each morning is look out his window to see if any bunnies or squirrels or maybe even deer are having breakfast:and he can recognize the songs of cardinals, robins, blue jays, chipping sparrows, and chickadees.  He even does a good imitation of them!  He’s picked up the names of many flowers and trees just by… osmosis I guess?  Sometimes I just don’t know how he knows so much!

So – on to our bird activities…

Math Skills:

I found a cute little game here.  The birds are made by taping pennies onto the playing pieces, and there are 3 dice to choose from – easy, medium, and difficult.  We used the medium one which made us go back one space and/or lose a turn once in a while.  The first birdie to hop along all the clouds and make his way to the tree wins. :)

Visual Discrimination:

I put out this bird matching game from Homeschool Share (it’s supposed to be a file folder game, but I just made it into mats).  M loves this and was very interested since he hadn’t seen it in a while.
Here’s a better picture; you match up cards with enlarged details to the correct bird:

Language Skills:

I made a set of bird picture cards of birds we have near our home.  I printed two sets, then cut the name off of one set.  We used these like Montessori 3-part cards. 
M matched up the pictures first, then found the correct name for each bird too.  This was the first time we’ve tried something like this and it went really well.  Some were easier than others, like Mallard Duck and Canada Goose since they have two words in their names.  He usually looked for the first letter, then decided if the rest of the word looked correct.  I divided these up into smaller groups for him (there are 25 in all which would’ve been a bit overwhelming). I made an online list of these birds at enature.com so we could listen to their songs and sounds.  You can read more about the cards, as well as find the link for the enature list in this post.  M really enjoyed listening to the birds on the computer!


Science:

We looked through some old encyclopedias – old, as in I had them as a child and have kept them for some reason.  M was fascinated with all the exotic birds pictured.
We also looked at some egg pictures and I pointed out the ones for “our” birds:
The encyclopedia also did a great job of covering the various types of beaks and feet that birds have.  
We made these pipecleaner bird feet… the one on the left has three toes in front and one in back.  Songbirds curl their toes around branches (M did this on his finger, and really liked it), and even sleep this way!  Birds of prey (eagles, hawks, owls) also have three toes in front and one in back like this, but they have very, very sharp claws on them (the better to catch mice with – yum!).   The foot on the right is like a woodpecker’s foot – two toes in front and two in back.  They use their toes to dig into a tree’s wood as they climb.

We also took a look at some information I found at the Fernbank Science Center website.  We learned more about bird feet and beaks and did the activity sheets pictured below…

Match the foot to the correct type of bird:
And match the beak to the type of food it’s meant for:
I was searching for ideas to make this a more hands-on learning experience for M, and the next time we do a bird theme, I will definitely use two great activities from The Adventures of Bear.  First, a great hands-on beak activity here, and a bird diagram puzzle here.

Other Bird Activities:

M cut yarn into small lengths (about 4") and we put it out on our doorstep for the birds to use in their nests:
Last summer he planted some gourds, specifically meant for wren houses.  Daddy drilled a hole in one, cleaned it out, and hung it up to dry all winter.  This spring M painted and glazed it and we hung it in a tree.  It looks like a cozy home, and we are waiting for you to move in, little wrens! 
We did some super-fun bird crafts; click on the photos below to go to the post about each one…

Birdhouse Suncatcher:
Shapes Bird:

Paper Bag Bird’s Nest:
To see a list of good children’s books we used during our little bird unit, see this post.
We learned some new songs too!

And we finished it all up with a science experiment about air pressure.

For more preschool posts, check out Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Bird Craft #3 – Birdhouse Suncatcher

A few weeks ago M used some of his Art Box materials to paint and glue 5 craft sticks (popsicle sticks) into a house shape.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but when we started learning about birds, it came to me – it was a perfect birdhouse shape!

Here’s what he used to make the 1st part of his suncatcher:

• 5 Craft sticks, painted, and glued into a house shape
• contact paper cut to fit the house
• tissue paper torn into random pieces
• glue
• a green strip of paper (about 2 1/2 inches wide), with “grass” lines marked along the length of it, going about 3/4 of the way up
• one circle cut from black paper

I took the backing off of the contact paper and M began sticking the tissue paper pieces onto it:
Next, he cut along the lines of the green paper to make grass (yes, I know birdhouses don’t normally sit in the grass, but it seemed like a nice touch.  And he got to practice those scissor skills.) :
We put a line of glue on the back of the craft sticks and glued the contact paper onto it, then glued the grass onto the front, and glued the black circle onto the middle to make the opening:
I trimmed the excess tissue paper off and we popped it onto the window:
Pretty, no?  But we thought  a little birdie might be nice too, so we got more contact paper and more tissue paper and made a little bird using M’s handprints.  I forgot to take a photo of the process, but here’s M showing you how to put your hands together to make a bird:
I traced his hands onto contact paper and cut the bird shape out for him.  After he covered it with tissue paper I added another piece of contact paper over the top and trimmed it up.
I drew a little birdie face on it:
And we glued it to the front of his birdhouse:
I love how it turned out – it’s really much prettier than the picture shows!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Music Time – Songs about Birds

There are so many great bird songs out there, I really could make this an extremely loooong post.  Don’t worry. :)  I’m just going to tell you some of our favorite new songs that we’ve been learning this past week.  And I want to share some wonderful websites to use when looking for songs.

I always go to Little Fingers That Play first.  Deborah has so many good, original, and fun songs that I’m always sure to find something M will love.  We’ve been singing “Three Little Birds” a lot.  I even drew some little birds and a nest for a quick flannel board set to go with it: It is such a catchy tune, I have to admit I sing it a lot even when M isn’t around. ;)

Next, Kididdles is another great place to go for songs.  They have a huge list, and if you sign up (totally free) you can print out song sheets as well as activity sheets to go along with some of the songs.  Many songs also have audio files of the tunes.  I added “Kookaburra”, “Robin in the Rain”, and “The Robin” to our little homemade song and poem book, and we’ve been singing these while we play a variety of instruments.

If you don’t have your own homemade songbook, and are interested in books of songs, Vanessa at Silly Eagle Books has this great list of 100 children’s song books.  We’ve been checking these out at our library – one or two a week – and love them.  Thank you, Vanessa, for putting this list together! :)

One more place where I’ve had good luck in looking for songs is childfun.  The site is a bit awkward to maneuver around in (in my opinion), but they have songs listed for every theme you can imagine.  They also have craft ideas, food ideas, and other activity suggestions too!  We found this cute little action poem/song there:

The Chickadee Song
(Fly your fingers away one by one as you sing this song)

Chorus:
Chickadee, chickadee, happy and gay
Chickadee, chickadee, fly away.

Five little chickadees, no room for more,
One flew away, and then there were four.

         Four little chickadees, sitting in a tree,
         One flew away, and then there were three.

         Three little chickadees, don't know what to do,
         One flew away, and then there were two.

         Two little chickadees, sitting in the sun,
         One flew away, then there was one.

         One little chickadee, can't have any fun.
          He flew away, and then there were none.


Of course there are a ton of other great songs and poems that go with a bird theme… 5 little Ducks, Little White Duck, 2 Little Blackbirds, Robin Redbreast…. etc.
If you have a favorite song about birds, I’d love to hear it!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Bird Craft #2 – Paper Bag Bird’s Nest

This is what M woke up to see on the table Tuesday morning:Supplies: brown paper lunch bag, glue, crayons or markers, yarn, feathers, anything interesting to line your nest with (you could add in some dried grass and twigs too!).
To make the nest, I rolled the paper bag inward all the way down.  M was dying to do this part, but it can be tricky to get it started; eventually it ends up looking like this:
Then it was time to decorate the nest.  M started off using crayons, but they were hard to manage on something so crumpled.  He switched to markers, which worked much better.
Next he began gluing in the all the fun stuff to make the nest nice and soft:
Look!  A cozy little nest!
Perfect for a little mama-made birdie. :)  M was surprised and thrilled to see this little bird and her eggs waiting to go in the nest a little later. :) 

This was a fun craft project for M, I only added in the little bird because I wanted to give him something special to keep.  He is all about birds right now… even to the point of standing at the window at bedtime saying, “I can’t go to bed, I’m listening to the chickadees and cardinals!” :)  Evidently he is not above using the sweet little birds as stall tactics (and he knows Mama gets excited when he uses the correct names).   It would be fun to do this and use large pom-poms to make birds for the nest.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Bird Craft #1

One of our little bird-themed activities was this shapes bird craft.  I cut out a few shapes (large oval, circle, heart, triangle, 2 tiny rectangles), and had them waiting on the table for M one morning.  I quickly drew a picture for him to use as a guide, and added some foam stickers, a googley eye, and some decorating options (watercolor pencils, watercolor paints, glitter glue).


You know once he saw the glitter glue he was all over this, right?  :)  Mmmm… sparkly…

As he put his little bird together I guided him by naming a shape for him to pick out, asking him where that shape was on the picture I had drawn, and then talking about that particular part of the bird.  This was a more mama-led activity than most of our crafts, but I wanted a little shape reviewing, and I used it to talk about the parts of a bird.  They have wings, not arms; a beak or bill instead of a nose and mouth; feathers  instead of bare skin or fur, etc.  I was sneaking in a little biology. ;)

After he glued everything in place the decorating began!  Of course he went straight for the glitter glue first, then used a couple of the watercolor pencils (although he did not actually paint over them with water), then used q-tips in the watercolor paints to fill in some areas. 
I just love how this little birdie turned out. :)  M named him “Easter Bird”.   He sure is a colorful one!

I made a template of the shapes we used, although it would be simple to do without them.  If you are interested you can download it here.

It would be neat to use feathers to decorate this little bird, but I. can. not. stand. feathers.  Uggh, the mess they make!  M can use feathers at Grandma’s house, hee hee.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Great Books for a Bird Theme

These are some of the books we’ve been reading over the past couple of weeks as we learn about birds.  I will be putting up a post with our bird crafts and activities (maybe a few posts?) soon!

We checked out a lot of books, some just for fun, and some with a lot of great information.  Our favorites are in the carousel above, and below are the ones I consider the best of the best (of what we read).  We also looked at birds in a field guide book we already own, as well as in some old encyclopedias from my childhood.

About Birds: A Guide For Children, by Cathryn Sil.  This book has lovely illustrations (I think watercolors and perhaps acrylics… I couldn’t find the exact mediums used listed anywhere in the book) by John Sil, a well-known wildlife artist.  The text is brief and easy to understand,  and this book acts as a wonderful introduction to various kinds of birds, as well as simple facts about birds (ie. some birds fly, some swim, others run). 

A Nest Full of Eggs, by Priscilla Belz Jenkins.  This is a “Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out-About-Science” Stage 1 book.  It is chock-full of great information and detailed illustrations!  It talks about many different kinds of birds, but gives detailed information about Robins in particular.  It explains and illustrates the steps of making a nest, shows the development of a baby bird within an egg, and there is a great feather identification page with 24 different species listed.  This is an amazing book and M was pretty interested in it.  I appreciated that the book had “normal” text on each page and then additional little blurbs throughout for more info.  It can get to be a bit long and you can take cues from your child about whether they want to know all the additional information or not.

Whiteblack the Penguin Sees the World, by Margret and H.A. Rey (the writers of Curious George).  This is just a cute and fun book.  We love the Reys and pretty much anything they’ve written.  Little Whiteblack wants to collect some exciting stories to tell his friends in Penguinland.  So he sets off and has quite an exciting adventure!  The more we read this book the more interesting it became… I enjoyed the difference between the cold land Whiteblack is from and the camel he meets from the desert.  He also meets up with an ostrich family, another bird that can’t fly.  I think there’s a lot of great conversation starters in this book as well as good jumping off points to learn about other animals and their habitats.

Flap Your Wings!  by P.D. Eastman.  This book is just funny, funny, funny.  M loves it and laughs at it every time we read it.  Two birds return to their nest to find a very large egg in it and although they have a few misgivings they decide to keep it and let it hatch.  The baby “bird” doesn’t really look much like a bird, and he’s very hungry… extremely hungry.  Eventually it’s time for him to learn to fly and this is where M really cracks up. :)  It was a great book for learning that many animals, not just birds, come from eggs.

Have a beautiful day! :)