Mama Built a Little Nest, by Jennifer Ward

This book explores the many different kinds of nests that birds build.

Materials

Bird feeder with bird seed

Bird nest in a ziplock bag

Picture of three birds from the story.

2 toilet paper tubes per child

assorted stickers or assorted colored tape

tongs or clothes pins that pinch open and close

24 pack of paper or plastic cups

bag of colored feather

Pipe cleaners cut into a variety of sizes to represent worms

Vocabulary

Ornithology (the study of birds)
Sturdy (strong)
Cavity Nest (built by woodpeckers, a hole in a tree. Kind of like a cavity in your tooth, a hole in your tooth)
Craggy (rocky rough cliff edge)
Burrow ( a hole in the ground used for a home)
Talons (the eagles claws or nails)

Before Reading the Story

Hold up cover of book and read title. Guess what story about. Ask the children what they think the big green ball is for? Ask children to share any knowledge they have about bird nests. (how are they built, what is a nest used for, where do you find nests). As the children talk about what they know about nests and birds, write their responses on a large piece of paper to pin to the wall. Make a KWL chart with the children. K=what we know about the subject, W= what we want to know about the subject, L= what we learned after reading/investigating about the subject.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and ability to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Reading the Story

Stop and talk about the different birds, especially those that live in your area. When you get to the 2^nd to last page (robins outside the window) ask the children what the author means when she says that they have a nest of their very own?

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, anad poems.

After Reading the Story

Ask the children to share with you some of the facts that they learned about nests. On a third piece of paper write their responses. Hang on the wall with the other two sheets.

Literacy/Early Writing; develops understanding that writing is a way of communicating for a variety of purposes. AND Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and ability to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Discovery

Tape the picture of the three different birds to the wall. Have a discussion with the children how they are alike and how they are different.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; begins to make comparisons between several objects based on a single attribute.

If you are lucky enough to have a bird nest you can bring in to share with the children . Put it in a ziplock bag so that it does not get torn apart or if there are any small bugs in the nest, they do not get into your classroom.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather informations, investigate materials, observe processes and relationships.

Add a bird identification book and a birdfeeder where the children can easily view it.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather informations, investigate materials, observe processes and relationships. AND Literacy/ Print Awareness & Concepts; develops growing understanding of different functions of forms of print such as signs, letters, newspapers, lists, messages, and menus.

Tape two toilet paper tubes together to make binoculars. Punch two holes in of the ends to add string to go around neck. Give the children stickers or bits of colored tape to decorate their binoculars.

Music and Movement

Put together the Rockin Robin Booklet and sing along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-OteAgvINc

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; shows growing interest and involvement in listening to and discussing a variety of fiction and non-fiction books, and poetry.

Sing and act out the movements to The Bird Song. Sing it to the tune of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.

This is the way we scratch for worms, scratch for worms, scratch for worms.
This is the way we scratch for worms so early in the morning.

This is the way we peck our food, peck our food, peck our food.
This is the way we peck our food so early in the morning.

This is the way we sit on our eggs, sit on our eggs, sit on our eggs.
This is the way we sit on our eggs so early in the morning.

This is the way we flap our wings, flap our wings, flap our wings.
This is the way we flap our wings so early in the morning.

This is the way we fly away, fly away

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, swinging, finger plays, games, and performances.

Do the finger play Two Little Blackbirds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjv5Jwgsn7I

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; understands an increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.

Blocks

Add the cups to the center today. Show the children how to stack them upside down one on top of the edge of two to make a pyramid. Or to stack them bottom to top to bottom to top. Both of these building activities take patience and good hand-eye coordination.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beads, and using scissors. AND Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in abilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences.

Art

Make nests with playdough (Pinch pot). Can the children roll small balls to be the eggs?

Creative Arts/Art; progresses in abilities to create drawings, paintings, models, and other art creations that are more detailed, creative, or realistic. AND Physical Health & Development;Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, hammer.

If your school has a petty fund, make bagel bird feeders.

To make one bird feeder, you will need:
1 day old bagel, lard, birdseed, string or ribbon for hanging

Spread the lard on the bagel.
Roll the bagel in the birdseed. (Or you may place the bagel in a gallon sized zipper bag that contains birdseed; shake the bag to coat the bagel.)
Tie ribbon or string through the hole of the bagel to hang the bagel. One of the good things about this bird feeder is that the birds can eat the whole thing!

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Sand and Water

In the sensory table add mud, bits of play dough, twigs, grasses, bits of yarn, thread, small pebbles, etc.. Explain to the children that today they are going to be birds and challenge them to build a nest. Give each child a pair of tweezers or tongs and explain that birds can only use their beaks (tweezers) and feet (hands) to build their nest.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to participate in simple investigations to test observations, discuss and draw conclusions, and form generalizations.

Library and Writing

Add bird identification book to center. Encourage the children to learn the name of one or two familiar birds to your area.

Dramatic Play

Encourage the children to pretend to be birds. Bring in several boxes big enough for the children to be able to sit in. To your center add; pipe cleaner worms, plastic Easter eggs, beaks made from sentence strips.

Creative Arts/ Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Math and Manipulatives

Ahead of time, take pieces of pipecleaner and bend into worms. Think of size and /or colors that the children can sort by. Use tongs or tweezers to practice fine motor skills and pretend that you’re a bird gathering food with its beak! For older children you might try using colored feathers.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, hammer. AND Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; shows increasing ability to match, sort, put in a series, and regroup objects according to one or two attributes such as shape or size.

Outdoor Play

If you are lucky enough to have pine trees that drop their needles ,or do this activity in the fall when the leaves are dropping, have the children rake needles/leaves into a pile and then use to make a bird nest with them being the birds.

Creative Arts/ Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations. AND Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops growing awareness of jobs and what is required to perform them.

Transitions

Ahead of time cut out and hide egg shapes around the classroom. Let the children go on an egg hunt. Have the children count how many eggs they found within the allotted time.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects. AND Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; shows growing capacity to maintain concentration over time on a task, question, set of directions or interactions, despite distractions and interruptions.

Resources

Crow Not Crow, by J. Yolen & A. Stemple

Materials

Binoculars
Crow crowns/mask
Crow shape, add numbers 1-10 onto bellies
toothpicks and shape page per child

Vocabulary

Crow (an all black bird )
Draped (covered with)
Omnivore (one who eats both plants and meat)

Before Reading the Story

Show the children the front of the book. Tell the children that this bird is called a crow. Explain to the children that some people do not like crows because of the way they look and they have loud voices. Talk about how the crow can not help how he looks or sounds. Ask the children how they would feel if someone talked badly about them because of the way they looked?

Explain to children that farmers don’t like crows because they love to eat corn, it is one of their favorite foods! This is why farmers put scarecrows in fields to scare the birds away. But crows actually help farmers and our environment too. Crows are omnivores fruits and seeds but also eat worms and bugs that destroy farmer’s crops. They also eat animals that have died and this helps clean up our roads and land.

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions; and for other varied purposes.

Reading the Story

Point out the wings, beak, and feet. On the page with the red winged blackbird, point out the red medallion. Asdk the children ,”Crow not crow’?

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

After Reading the Story

Play crow-not crow using the bird cards. If it is not a crow, ask the children to tell you why not.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Discovery

Put out binoculars for the children to use to look for birds. Add a bird identification book or poster.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Learn one or two bird calls including the crow (caw caw). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHnzqKfxSQw

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes.

Music and Movement

Pretend to fly like birds. Put on some music and fly about the room. Can the children swoop down low? Fly high into the clouds? Flap their wings quickly, slowly? Can they fly in circles? Can they touch the ground while the flap their wings? Etc.

Physical Health & Development/ Health Status & Practices; progresses in physical growth, strength, stamina, and flexibility.

Teach the children the fingerplay 2 Little Blackbirds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjv5Jwgsn7I

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

Sing, 5 Shiney Crows https://youtu.be/qoSFIswtDss using your fingers to denote the number of crows.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Blocks

Make 10 crow shapes and number them 1-10 and tape to blocks. Challenge the children to put the crows in number order.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increasing ability to count in sequence to 10 and beyond.

Or have the child choose two crow blocks and add that many blocks together. (Simple addition)

Mathematics/ Number & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine, separate, and name “how many” concrete objects.

Art

Have the children paint 2 paper plates black. Cut one in half and use staples or brads to attach to the sides of the whole plate to make a crow body and wings. Let the children embellish with eyes, beaks, and feet when dry.

Creative Arts/Art; gains ability in using different art media and materials in a variety of ways for creative expression and representation.

Sand and Water

If you have a shredder, shred newspaper to fill the table. Add pieces of pipe cleaner to represent worms and tweezers or pinchers. The children can pretend to be crows and pick up the worms for lunch.

Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; Develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Library and Writing

Bring in bird identification book.

Dramatic Play

Explain to the children that crows live in extended and close family units. Put out the crow crowns and encourage the children to do family play. What roles does each child take?

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games and using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.

Math and Manipulatives

Make copies of the shape page. Give each child a toothpick and have them sit on the carpet with their shape page in front of them. Show the children how to tke the toothpick and push it down onto the dots of the shapes. It will go through the paper and into the carpet. Have the children make one or more shapes by pushing down and up wit the toothpick.

Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Persistence; grows in a bilities to persist in and complete a variety of tasks, activities, projects, and experiences.

Outdoor Play

Look for a mostly black bird. A singing bird. 2 or more birds together. A bird in a tree. A bird on the ground.

Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; chooses to participate in an increasing variety of tasks and activities.

Play, You’re Only Safe If… which is really just a variation of tag. The teacher calls out “You’re only safe if…” and then call out a specific tree or other landscape feature on your playground. This helps your children learn to recognize various trees or shrubs by name (the loblolly pine tree, the hickory nut tree, the bridal wreath bush). The person who is IT then chases the children and tries to tag them before they reach the safety item. If they are tagged, then they can help tag other children. When most of the children are tagged, start again changing the safety item.

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; participates actively in games outdoors and other forms of exercise that enhance physical fitness.

Transitions

Make and laminate 10 crows with a number on each one (1-10). Have one child pretend to be a scarecrow. Other children will get a numbered crow. The Scarecrow stands in the front of the room and yells ‘caw, caw, caw.’ When the Crows hear this, they must scatter and try to line up in numerical order. Scarecrow can also call out a number and that Crow comes to the front the room.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Resources

Make crown from sentence strip and attach crow in crown to front.

use with toothpick to punch holes and make shapes

No Two Alike, by K. Baker

Two little birds fly through a winter’s’ day noting that all things are different, no two are just alike.

Materials

Patterns to make birds
Shape cut outs, enough for every child in your classroom to have one. Each cutout needs to be different from any other (think different colors, one might have stripes, etc). Take each shape cut out, and cut it in half. Keep the sets of shape cut outs in two piles.
The day before, freeze food colored water into ice cube trays.

Vocabulary

Before Reading the Story

Put a line of tape down the middle of your circle/group area. Label one side Yes and the other side No. Tell the children that you are going to play a yes or no listening game. Ask questions that are either yes or no. The children must go and stand on the side of the tape line that goes along with their answer. (Do you have a pet or no pet? Did you take a shower last night? Do you have a big brother or no big brother? Do you like meatloaf?, Are you wearing the color blue?).

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; understands an increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.

Reading the Story

On the very last page where the two feathers are floating through the air, stop and ask the children if they can see how they are almost alike, but not quite.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

After Reading the Story

Hold up an Almost Alike card set from the resources. Say, “No two alike, almost but not quite”. Then ask the children to tell you what they see that is different.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Discovery

Bring in a collection of some natural object found in your region (acorns, rocks, flowers, shells). Put these out with a magnifying glass for the children to look at and compare how the are alike and different.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops increased ability to observe and discuss common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects and materials. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Music and Movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FClGhto1vIg Sing one of these things is not like the other Verse. Then ask the children to help tell which one is different. Use items that are similar in your classroom.

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; develops increased ability to observe and discuss common properties, differences, and comparisons among objects and materials.

Get your shape cut outs. Tape one half of them onto the floor throughout the room. Put the other half into an empty basket or cubby. Have the children pick a shape half out of the basket. Tell the children that when you put the music on they are to walk around the room looking for the other half of their shape cut out. Remind them that though there might be 5 circles, no two are exactly alike so they need to look carefully at their shape cut out. Put the music on, giving the children ample time to look around the room for their half of the shape cut out. Turn the music off and the children must go and stand on their shape. Check to make sure everyone is on the correct shape cutout. Gather the half shapes the children are holding and pass them out to different children. Play as long as the children are interested.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions.

Blocks

Challenge the children to build alike structures by taking turns adding a block to their own structure and then the next child copies it. The second child then adds a new block to his structure and the first child copies it. Encourage the children to go back and forth like this for a minimum of 5 exchanges. When they are finished, ask are they just alike or not quite?

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions; to take turns in games or using materials; and to interact without being overly directive or submissive.

Art

Ahead of time, cut out the patterns to make birds. Put these on the table along with your glue. Let the children collage using the varied shapes to make birds in any manner that they choose. Add markers to embellish.

Creative Arts/Art; progresses in abilities to create drawings, paintings, models, and other art creations that are more detailed, creative, or realistic.

Sand and Water

Add the food colored ice cubes to the water table today with water. As the children play, ask them to observe what is happening to the ice cubes and to the water around the ice cubes.

Science/Scientific Methods & Skills; begins to participate in simple investigations to test observations, discuss and draw conclusions, and form generalizations.

Library and Writing

Let the children practice writing their name today. Note how everyone’s name is different and everyone writes their letters a little different from each other. No two are alike.

Literacy/Early Writing; progresses from using scribbles, shapes, or pictures to represent ideas, to using letter-like symbols, to copying or writing familiar words such as their own name.

Dramatic Play

Put out the baby dolls today. As the children care for their dolls, ask them if they can see how they are alike and how they are different. (My baby is littler that his. My baby is soft and yours is hard. My baby has dark skin like Julian and your baby has white skin like me. My baby gots eyes that close).

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Math and Manipulatives

Play an adding game with the children. Use cubes or counters to make different addition equations. (Here are three red bears plus 2 blue bears. How many bears in all)?

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine, separate, and name “how many” concrete objects.

Outdoor Play

Bring out the parachute or a large bed sheet. Have everybody hold along the edges so that you can make the parachute go up and down by moving your arms up and down. Say the following; (Child, Child what do you say? Run/Jump/Gallop round the chute today. The child then follows the direction and runs around the parachute. You could also say to run under the chute today.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions. AND Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; participates actively in games, outdoor play, and other forms of exercise that enhance physical fitness.

Transitions

Continue using the Almost Alike cards as directed in After Reading the Story.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.