Kindergarten, Science, Week 29

This week we read:

• Even an Ostrich Needs a Nest by Irene Kelly
• Paintings are realistic, and though not first rate they demonstrate the birds and nests very well; each page shows at least one bird and it's nest with three to five sentences about the bird and nest.
• This book is rather long. I tried to read the whole book in 1 day, but K. got bored about 3/4ths of the way through, so I would recommend just looking at a few pages each day.
• About Raptors by Cathryn Sill
• It's a Bird by Elisa Peters
• Pictures; one sentence per page tells a fact about birds.
• Do You Know About Birds by Buffy Silverman
• Pictures; two to six sentences per page; teaches about feathers, beaks, and eggs
• Birds and Trees by Emily C. Dawson
• Pictures; two to three sentences per page tell why birds need trees and trees need birds
• Eagles by Julie K. Lundgren
• Pictures; three to eight sentences per page tell about eagles
• Swans by Valerie Bodden
• Pictures; three to five sentences per page teach about swans
• Thunder Birds by Jim Arnosky
• Fantastic Paintings, some pages fold out to show life size birds. We didn't read the text in this book -- just looked at the birds (and their wing spans) and talked about what a great God we have and the wonderful birds He made.
• Birds by Nicola Davies
• Pictures; lots of information about birds with a couple projects at the end of the book
• The Peregrine's Journey by Madeleine Dunphy
• Realistic Paintings; tells the story of a falcon migrating from the arctic to Argentina

Fiction books about birds:

• Tara's Flight by Ruth Eitzen
• An imaginative story about the dove that Noah let out of the ark
• Those Calculating Crows! by Ali Wakefield
• A counting story about crows and a corn field
• Annie and Snowball and the Cozy Nest by Cynthia Rylant
• Nice story about a robin building her nest, laying and hatching eggs
• The Birdwatchers by Simon James
• A story about a girl and her grandpa going birdwatching

Also:

• We watched this video of a robin family hatching and growing up 
• We marked the wing spans of some birds on our driveway

Kindergarten, Science, Week 28

This week we started learning about birds.

Here are the books we read:

• Wild Life Fact File, Section 2: Birds
• When my oldest sister was cleaning out her house she gave me the Fact Files. Sometimes you can pick them up in second hand stores.
• Great pictures; we just looked at as many cards as K. was interested in. I would bring out the different kinds of nests, and the different places they built their nest. K. enjoyed seeing where they lived.
• Hatch! by Roxie Munro
• Realistic paintings; this book shows some eggs and gives clues about what bird they belong to, then on the next page there is a drawing of the bird in its habitat and there is more information about the bird. This text was mostly more than a 5 year old wanted to hear, so I didn't read it all but just picked a couple things on each page to read. What K. did like about this book is that on the habitat pages there is a list of three to five other animals that are pictured in the habitat, and she could search for them. So this book could be used for older and younger children.
• Whose Nest Is This? by Heidi Bee Roemer
• Realistic paintings; on the left page there is a drawing of a nest and four lines of rhymed text about the nest and it's owner. On the right page there is a drawing of the bird (or fish or turtle or mouse or alligator) with the nest.
• Bird Nests by Heather Adamson
• Great pictures; just has six or seven birds with pictures of them with their nests and young. Simple text about the nest and the bird.
• About Raptors: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill
• Realistic paintings; one simple line of text on the left page, painting of a raptor in its habitat on the right page. In the back of the book it gives more information about each bird shown.

Here are fiction books about birds that we read:

• How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham
• Mostly a picture story (very few words) about a little boy who finds a pigeon with a broken wing. His parents help him bandage the bird. Its wing heals and they release it where they found it. K. likes this book.
• Skylar by Mary Cuffe-Perez
• Story about some pond geese. We are only a couple chapters into the book.