BIRDWATCHING FOR LITTLE KIDS
Now that you've set up a bird feeding station in your Outdoor Classroom, it's time for even more fun & learning!
Little children love watching birds...even the youngest children will gaze at the sky with wonder at the beauty of a bird soaring by. So, the idea of have a "birdwatching bag" is just irresistible for little kids.
I set up a child-size shoulder satchel for a wonderful little birdwatching bag with these tools inside:
- Binoculars
- Hand-held bird call
- Bird identification book
- Small spiral notebook & pen
You can also add things like a directional compass and even a child-size camera, for older children.
I've found all the above items at the Wild Birds Unlimited Stores on-line site. They also have lots of actual stores and we are lucky enough to have several in our region of the SF East Bay. One of my favorite places to explore with children!
The birds will definitely visit your Outdoor Classroom when you offer them a feeding & watering station. You can read more about setting up kid-friendly bird habitats in some of my past posts:
and more at this link:
Binoculars are always a big hit!
4-yr old observing the birds through child-size binoculars
I like the little bird calls that are made by Audubon (found at Wild Birds Unlimited, see above link). They are hand-operated and when twisted they sound just like birds!
The bird identification book that I like is Beginners Guide to Birds by Stokes. The Stokes books are great for little children because they are small sized and feature photographs (rather than drawings) of the birds of the region according to color.
One of the all-time favorite activities for little bird watchers is recording their observations in the child-size journal! You can provide little spiral bound notebooks that have lined pages for the older children to write down the names of the birds observed. Or, you can provide a small-sized unlined sketch pad for children to "draw" the birds they see.
So there, you can see some of those great skills for the little kids to be developing:
- Observing (visual discrimination)
- Recording (writing & pre-writing)
- Caring for the environment (compassion)
- Having fun, too!
Hope you enjoy birdwatching with your little ones...
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