Nature Study Lesson #14: The Chickadee & Parts of the Bird
As a follow-up from last week's nature walk when my youngest noted the chickadee, 
we added the Black-capped Chickadee to our Bird Field Guides. I have recently re-discovered a wonderful book that I used when my oldest was young, Nature For he Very Young, A Handbook of Indoor and Outdoor Activities by Marcia Bowden. It has a chapter on the Black-capped Chickadee, which includes a puzzle of one. We painted ours with watercolor according to Field Guides. We then cut the pieces out and glued them together. While we did this, we were able to review the parts of a bird. It just seemed natural to say things like, "Paint the cap and bib black" or "Glue the wings right above the breast" and made a boring lesson in which they labeled the parts unnecessary. Interestingly enough, even though they were given the same puzzle pieces, and each followed the examples in the Field Guides, each bird came out uniquely their own and did not look like carbon copies.
we added the Black-capped Chickadee to our Bird Field Guides. I have recently re-discovered a wonderful book that I used when my oldest was young, Nature For he Very Young, A Handbook of Indoor and Outdoor Activities by Marcia Bowden. It has a chapter on the Black-capped Chickadee, which includes a puzzle of one. We painted ours with watercolor according to Field Guides. We then cut the pieces out and glued them together. While we did this, we were able to review the parts of a bird. It just seemed natural to say things like, "Paint the cap and bib black" or "Glue the wings right above the breast" and made a boring lesson in which they labeled the parts unnecessary. Interestingly enough, even though they were given the same puzzle pieces, and each followed the examples in the Field Guides, each bird came out uniquely their own and did not look like carbon copies.
