Honey Pot's Letter B Unit
Birds Unit (2013)
There is a Bird on your Head! Unit
Books
These are the four bird books we borrowed from the library. Our favorite was Birds but we are huge Dr. Seuss fans, so Gertrude McFuzz was also read quite frequently.
Cheerios Bird Feeders
I've seen this activity all over Pinterest. The kids were asking for an activity and I hadn't prepared anything by this time, so I pulled out the chenille stems and let them have at it! They both worked so hard on their bird feeders, and even requested making a second and third each.
They even tried to hang them up themselves. It's a shame the birds didn't enjoy these at all. But if you're interested in making something that they would enjoy, check out our Night Tree activity from Christmastime.
Making Observations + Nature Journals
We pulled out our nature journals for this next activity. I had printed each of the kids a template with five birds on them, and they were to color each one differently based on the birds they saw. We have an awesome bird feeder at our new house that attracts so many. I knew it wouldn't be difficult to fill the template. For example:
They first sat on the back deck, listening to the different bird calls. This was so peaceful. Once they saw a bird, they sat down and colored it with their colored pencils.
Here is Honey Pot looking toward the trees for more.
Then we took a walk toward the front of the house...
And found our last one.
Here is Honey Pot's page!
And Little M&M's. Though he didn't color them quite as they appeared, he was very into the scavenger hunt portion of this activity. This was a huge success, and I know they enjoyed themselves. I sure did.
Paint the Sky with Feathers
This idea comes right from one of our library books, Birds by Kevin Henkes. He wondered what the sky would look like "if birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew." What an imaginative idea! We love Kevin Henkes, and another favorite is Kitten's First Full Moon. Take a look at what we did with that book as well!
I gave each child a blue sheet of paper, assorted paint colors and a few feathers.
They painted however they liked. Honey Pot began with a few simple strokes...
Then she really got into it!
Little M&M had a much calmer bird, as you can see!
Such fun!
Color by Number
I'm trying to include activities for both Honey Pot and Little M&M. This next one was just for Honey Pot. I printed this color by number from a website actually called Color by Numbers. I just love the different levels they offer.
Dot Marker B
Little M&M worked hard on other pages simultaneously. First up, the dot marker page from Shannon's Tot School. We like this a lot!
Connect the Dots Bird
Honey Pot also tried a connect-the-dots page from this website.
Sticker Activity
We did this for Little M&M's A is for Apple unit too, and it was a big success. He loves stickers, and this really helps with letter recognition. We used Tweety Bird stickers, because that's what I had on hand!
Feathers + Colander Fine Motor
We did something similar with chenille stems in the past, and I must admit, the activity lost his interest quickly. But feathers! So much fun, and he did this again and again.
Baby Bird Nest Game
I placed a bird puppet in a nest of brown shredded paper, and scattered a few pieces of chenille stems around the room in two colors. The kids were to pick them up with clothespin "beaks" and bring these "worms" to their baby bird. The idea originally comes from PreKinders, and we did something similar during our previous bird unit.
There were orange and purple "worms" and a matching clothespin for each, and the kids were each assigned one color.
They "flew" around the room, searching for worms to pick up with their "beaks."
And in they had found lots of worms!
We counted them up, for some practice counting with one-to-one correspondence.
And leave it to Honey Pot to find a sensory bin in any activity she can!
