Homeschool Discoveries

I’ve been meaning share about Miss M’s Robins lapbook and our unit on backyard birds for a while, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.  🙂  This year Miss M (age almost 9, 3rd grade) took an interest in the robins we were observing in our yard and she decided she wanted to learn about them in more depth.  We were only able to find one book solely devoted to robins at the library (that was available — we were on a long waiting list for a couple others that didn’t arrive in time).   Even though Miss M was most interested in robins, we took this opportunity to get books about other birds we see in our yard, as well as a few other nature-related books:

The books in the picture were some of Miss M’s favorites:

• Backyard Birds: Cardinals
• Robins
• Backyard Birding for Kids
• Sparrows
• Why Do Birds Sing?
• John Muir
• Girls Who Looked Under Rocks

We also checked out a few assorted field guides — the most useful one was a guide for kids that focused on birds from our state.  We might buy a copy of that one.

Miss M also requested a lapbook on Robins.  I was beyond thrilled to find an excellent, free lapbook from Dynamic2Moms (Scroll down toward the bottom of the page to see the Robins unit).    Most of  Miss M’s lapbook came from that file:

We also found inspiration and information from the following sites:

American Robins @ Animal Diversity Web

Robins Lapbook and Unity Study @ Homeschool Creations

American Robin @ Journey North

American Robin @ Kidzone.ws

Various youtube videos of baby robins (I forgot to bookmark which ones we watched, but if you search terms such as “baby robins hatching”, you’ll find some neat videos!)

Miss M’s bird unit will culminate with an Ornithology class this Friday at a nearby nature area — though I guess it is really more of a “continuation” of her interest in birds.  Though our formal study for school on birds is finished, she can often be found in the yard or at one of our windows observing what the robins are doing in our yard.  🙂

Linking up with Science Sunday @ Adventures in Mommydom!