Birds – Picture Cards and Songs

We are so blessed to live where we do… with almost a full acre’s worth of yard and an abundance of trees, we have many different little feathered friends. :) The pretty one above is one of my favorites (that’s a public domain photo, not actually one of our goldfinches, but ours are just as sweet-looking).  Additionally, we have a handful of trails near a creek bed in a wooded area to our north, and a small lake to our south.  We see plenty of wildlife, including some amazing birds.  The lake often has bald eagles near it and we even saw one on a tall pine in our backyard a couple of years ago!  This is all despite being pretty near a major highway, the one drawback to our neighborhood.

Now that spring has sprung the birds are out in full force and we’ve been learning a lot about these little guys.  I couldn’t believe when I sat down to make a list of all the different species that I came up with 25!  I’ve learned all their names over the past 10 or so years thanks to my nature-loving husband.  And it’s so neat and fun to share this knowledge with M.

Another post about all our little bird-study activities will be coming soon (I hope!), but for now I wanted to share with you some little cards I’ve made.  These are the 25 species of birds we’ve encountered in our own yard or within a mile of our home.  I’m sure there are others, but really 25 is enough, don’t you think?  These could be used as Montessori 3-part cards if you made two copies of each.  They’d also be great for a matching game or “go fish” type card game.  We are using them simply to learn their names and talk about them.   And as long as I have them made, I might as well share them, right? :)  Click on the picture to go to the download page:

One of our favorite activities has been learning the various bird songs.  I’ve made a list at enature.com of all 25 species… we use the list to learn more about each bird and most have an audio file to listen to the sounds and songs of each bird.  I’ve found it fascinating and M seems to really enjoy it too!  The link is here, and you’ll need to use BirdCards9 as the user name and blogger as the password. Along the top of the page (about an inch down from the top) you'll see a menu bar; under "Local Nature" click on "Personal Wildlife List" to go to the list I created.  Any questions or problems, contact me!  You'll need to click on the birds and then you'll see a yellow button labeled "listen".  Click on this to hear each bird!

If you use these and blog about them, please include a link back here.
Have a beautiful day! :)

Book Review – A Century Turns by William J. Bennett

This is, without a doubt, the best political history of recent times that I’ve read. 
A Century Turns is a detailed chronology of the past two decades, from 1998 and the election of George H. W. Bush up to the recent election of Barack Obama.  I have lived this historical time, yet never have I understood it as thoroughly as I do now, thanks to Bill Bennett.
Not only is this book about politics, it’s about popular culture and world events… and how all of it has influenced our nation and brought us to where we are today.  Bennett, a known conservative, does an admirable job of providing an objective point of view when discussing events.  His opinion, when shared, is stated as such, and differing opinions are explained and respected as well.  The narration of events is peppered with Bennett’s personal anecdotes (he was closely involved with the major players in many events), which makes the book highly enjoyable.
This would work well as a history textbook (if only my high school history texts had been as interesting and compelling as this one!); at the very least it can be used as an extremely detailed chronological timeline of this period. 
I’m recommending this book to everyone I know.  Bennett has fascinated me with the history of my own time, and I am very grateful. 
Thank you to Thomas Nelson Publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book to review.