Week 1- BIRDS

So for the first week of our fun summer learning activities ;) we decided to learn about birds. Monday we went to the library and checked out way too many books on birds. We didn't end up reading most of them. We got the most use out of The National Geographic's Backyard Birds. We also read some classics that we love- like The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman. All three of our children have loved that one. They all have the voices and the "I love my house- I love my nest" song down pat. We have always thought the part where the birds are gathering things for their nest, and they gather some "man hair"  from this hippie man's beard- hilarious. It is always worthy of a good belly laugh!

Josiah and Isaac each chose a bird to learn about. Isaac chose a Blue Jay and Josiah chose a House Wren. On Thursday we went on a bird watching hike at a local park that has a nature trail. It turned out to be a very fun and succesful walk!

Josiah found a locust shell at the start of the trail.

After walking and looking for a while- Josiah went under a big canopy of kudzu and found a nest hanging right at waste level. The boys all loved that!

The mom was hiding somewhere in here!

My sweet and  beautiful friend Denae came along for the adventure.

On the way out we found a Blue Jay feather.

On Friday we made bird nests. You make them the same way you make the "hay stacks". (Which I had forgotten since we did this like, three years ago! I was thinking hay stacks were pretzels and chocolate!) You use chow mein noodles and butterscotch chips.

Let's do this mom!

Melting butterscotch chips...

Mixing with chow mein noodles...

(Amaus normally just eats everything up while we're cooking or making. This can annoy hos brothers when he starts eating their creations. :) )

I remembered after the fact that we should have lined ourbowls in wax paper and then we could have taken them out of the bowls and had free standing nests. Oh well.

                                                                              A nest!