Bird Study, Week One

As I mentioned in this post, we finished our twelve week study of insects, and are planning to finish out the calendar year studying birds.

As usual, I began with a search of our books and our library's collection to find the best on the subject at hand. When I do this, not only do I search for non-fiction, I also gather up picture books, readers, and read-alouds on the topic, including fiction.

And - bonus! - a lot of times this brings out random little gems that might be completely off-topic, but otherwise sitting on the library shelf undiscovered. I love those finds!

(Okay, okay, so if I'm honest this is only about a third fourth of the books we brought home on birds. But I don't want to admit to being one of those homeschooler book hogs addicts!)

With books in hand, we started our study with an overview of birds: what characteristics they share, and what makes them unique. Basically answering the question, "What is a bird?"

To do this, we got out our marker board and divided it into four categories:

All Birds
No Birds
Most Birds

Only Birds

We sat down and browsed through several of our bird books, listing appropriate bird characteristics in each category. For example: All birds hatch from eggs. Most birds can fly. Only birds have feathers.

After we were satisfied with our lists, we transferred them to a notebooking page:

And that basically sums up week one of Birds. Lots and lots of reading, both independently and together, and very little paper-work.

Next week: Owls!

*I did want to caution anyone beginning a study of birds to be aware: most books on the subject include a section, stated as fact, on how birds supposedly evolved from dinosaurs. I didn't remember this from my own school years and was a little surprised to find it in almost every book. Dale and I simply turned to Genesis and read the order of creation. The Bible being the ultimate authority meant it was right and the other books were wrong. The end. :)