Monday, January 3, 2011

January Lesson Plans, Birds









During the month of January we will study the Birds of New York and how winter effects their lives.

For each lesson plan, I will note our current resources, and how we connect our beliefs with our learning.
(It should be noted that we also follow a loosely Montessorian approach, we also tend to follow a child led approach, which means, that the children decide what we will study).We first find out what the children want to learn about birds and then we collect resources to support their learning.

Bird Unit
Questions:

What do we know about birds?

What do we want to learn about birds?

From there we decided to study several categories:
How and why birds fly
What birds use to build nests and how they build their nests

What birds eat (does it change based on the season)
How do we determine the type of bird


Activities-
Observe birds- in our own backyard, at a friends and at a local sanctuary
Note the number of birds, type, sex
Take pictures birds- learn how to take "good" pictures and about photography in general.

To learn about photography we will use or subscribtion to BrainPopJr http://www.brainpopjr.com (There are portions that are free)
Under the Arts and Technology section choose Taking Photos and watch a clip about photography.

The following websites are free and have lots of helpful information:
George Eastmann, Kodak
www.eastmanhouse.org
historyforkids.utah.gov

Books
Backyard Birds (Peterson Field Guides® for Young Naturalists) Backyard Birds (Peterson Field Guides® for Young Naturalists)
Karen Stray Nolting, et al

Bird (DK Eyewitness Books) by David Burnie






UU Values and Beliefs this lesson reflects:

* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Whenever we use a resource we try to search for truth and meaning.

We do our best to respect the natural world and our place in it by acting as visitors on this planet earth. We do our best to tread lightly.

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