Hooray For Birds!!


Circle Time Ideas

Birds are a fun theme to explore in preschool because they can be found everywhere. Begin the week by taking the children outside on a bird watching expedition. Bring along a few pairs of binoculars for them to take turns using. If you have one, take along a Polaroid camera and take pictures of the different birds you find. Later, you can identify them in a bird guide.


Good Bird Book
About Birds - a guide for children
by John Sill (editor)  

Let the children gather around and look at the photographs in this book. Let them compare the birds they saw on their walk to the birds in the book. Are any of them the same? If so, read some facts that the children may find interesting.



Bird Calls
While you were on your walk did you hear any interesting sounds? Did the birds make any noises? Nearly all birds have a voice and use their voices to call or sing. A call consists of a single sound. A song consists of a series of sounds in a definite pattern. Give each child the chance to make a bird call or bird song. Just for fun, you can let them pass a microphone (or megaphone if you don’t have a microphone) so their birdcalls are loud and majestic.



Good Books
Birdsong
by Audrey Wood 

Franny B. Kranny There’s a Bird in Your Hair
By Harriet Lerner

When Agnes Caws
By Candace Fleming

Messy Table

Puff Dough
You can tie this fun recipe into the bird theme by using the dough to make fluffy clouds. Birds fly in the sky through clouds of all different shapes. Let the children form clouds that look like animals and other objects.

Recipe
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1 bag of white, cotton balls

Mix flour and water together to make a paste. Roll cotton balls in the paste and carefully lift them out. Excess paste will fall off. Let the children form the dough into desired shapes on a baking sheet. Bake the shapes for one hour at 325 degrees.



Cut & Color Table

Bird Collage
Provide the children with plenty of nature magazines. Ask parents to bring in any bird magazines they do not need anymore. Let the children cut bird pictures out of the magazines and glue them onto a blue piece of construction paper. Don’t forget bird stickers and bird drawings too. Does anybody want to dictate a story about a bird?


Creative Art

Cooperative Sponge Painting
Things you will need:
long sheets of white, poster paper
sponges in different shapes and sizes
white paint
light blue paint
navy blue paint

Let the children use the sponges to create a sky for the birds we will make later in the week. They can mix the colors as they print to create a truly beautiful backdrop.

Outside

Duck Duck Goose
What better game to play while discovering birds? Encourage the children to fly around the circle instead of running. If one bird catches the other, that bird must sit in the “nest” until the next bird is caught. You can put a pile of blankets in the middle of the circle to form a nest.
 
Good Book
Duck Duck Goose (My First Reader)
By Kirsten Hall