Nature Class - Birds

Since we are homeschooling our children, I wanted to be intentional about creating opportunities to learn alongside our friends and to learn outdoors. I came up with the idea of having "nature classes" at least once a month on our land. We had our first class in February and it was on the topic of "birds." It truly brought me so much joy to put it together and lead it.

It was fun to gather materials for the class. I found two books at the library that were age appropriate about birds. I picked up bird houses from Dollar Tree for the kids to paint. Then we gathered pinecones in the woods and I picked up some peanut butter and bird seeds to make our very own bird feeders. 

We started things off with "Nature Show & Tell" - an idea I got from the nature school we went to last Winter/ Spring. The program was called "Roots & Wings" and we loved it. Once we built our house and moved, it just became way too far - almost an hour away. My son loved bringing an item from nature each week to use as show and tell so I was thrilled to pull that idea into our own nature classes. Each child stands in front of the group and presents their item from nature and shares a little about it. 

After show and tell, we read "About Birds" altogether and the kids did a great job of jumping in on things they knew about birds. Then I read a few excerpts from "The Big Book of Birds" that I had marked beforehand - we all learned a little something new about birds. I highly recommend this specific book!

The kids enjoyed painting their bird houses while I read "The Big Book of Birds" and I loved seeing the effort they put into it. 

Afterwards we moved to the bench by the creek and they worked on their "bird feeders" - they spread peanut butter on their pinecones then rolled them in bird seed. 

I really enjoyed doing this with my kids and I would highly recommend it! I am already planning our next "nature class" and look forward to sharing more.