Homeschool tip: Our bird bulletin board

Solomon just greeted me from his nap with a hug grin.  I smiled back, cheered, and clapped my hands.  He had rolled over in his little bed for the first time!  If only I could have seen.  Yay for firsts!

(picture is the view out my kitchen window this morning - cardinals, juncos, a mourning dove - all eagerly eating)

After no snow at all last winter, yesterday mid-morning there was great excitement here in our Lilly-colored farmhouse when we saw some little white flakes starting to fall.  Sadly within the hour, it had turned to sleet.  But still, seeing some white stuff was great!  Frank and the kids had a great time sledding down the icy driveway.  Solomon and I watched from the window.  (I didn't want to take him out in the sleet.)

For the past few years, the kids and I have been learning to recognize different kinds of birds.  It has turned out to be really interesting.  Today my husband pointed out a blackbird with some color on it's wing and I was happy to see red-winged blackbirds in our yard.   Hunter said I needed to "add it to the chart."

He was talking about our bird bulletin board.  It is hanging in our dining room, next to the windows.  I covered a bulletin board with posterboard and velcro dots.  I have a box of pictures of birds that I labeled and laminated and put velcro dots on the back of.  When we see a different bird out the window, we put up the appropriate bird card on the board.  Usually, once a season, we take all the pictures down and start all over.  It has been great helping us learn birds common in our yard.  Here is our bird board currently:

 

(As you see it's nothing fancy - I really ought to "pretty it up.")  It's located next to our dining room window so we get to watch birds while we eat. Our favorite book for bird identification is Birds of the Carolinas Field Guide by Stan Tekiela.  There is also a CD that goes with it and we have been slowly learning to identify birds by sound.

The more we learn about birds, the more appreciation we have of how imaginative God was in creating such a variety of birds!  Here is our favorite Bible passage about birds - and it's extra special because it says "lilies" and "Solomon" in it (wink!)

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 'And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?'"  - Matthew 6:26-30

By the way, Frank and I were amused at how ironic it was that I was writing about us trapping mice a few posts ago, then my last post was about Tabby bringing Martin and Katharina Luther - her new gerbils - into the house.  They are still rodents!  They are providing a lot of amusement though.

Hunter decided that he may get gerbils or hamsters when he's older.  If he does he wants to name them Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan.  I thought that was pretty funny!