Birds

This weekend is The Great Backyard Birdcount, so we spent the week learning and talking about all different kinds of birds.  I am not a bird watcher and don't know much about identifying birds other than the common birds, so we had a lot to learn.

Arboretum

We kept our eyes our and saw birds everywhere.  In the sky, on the ground in the water.  Ducks, geese, peacocks and other birds that I don't know their names.

 Bird Matching

Gavin is getting the Highlights magazine and was so excited to discover a bird game in there.  We got to play a game of memory and to learn some names of different kind of birds.

Bird Feeders

Brielle and Ethan have been collecting pinecones for the past 4 or 5 weeks and have been SO excited to turn them into the classic pinecone bird feeder

We started by covering them in peanut butter, or in Ethan's case eating peanut butter off the pinecone.  Gross.

Rolling them in the birdseed.

And then went to hang them on the tree.

The Little Red Hen 

sometime in the future I will do a full week devoted to this book.  There are so many fun activities we didn't have time to do, but I wanted to introduce the kids to a favorite classic story.

the kids helped grind the wheat. 

and make the bread

so, they got to eat.  We did a taste test with different kinds.  They liked all of them.

hand-print hen puppets

Bird Snacks

trail mix (nuts and raisins)

fruit

we also had gummy worms for a fun treat, the were a definite favorite.

Bird Math

I found cheesy crackers at target that were in the shape of birds.

Brielle has been very interested in asking me math problems.  I decided to start introducing her to the written form of addition.

Books

In addition to the Little Red Hen books, we had a very large selection to choose from.  Some of this weeks favorites were:

A Mother for Choco-cute pictures, a great book to introduce adoption to small kids

Grumpy Bird-since we all wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes, it was a fun way to show how to decide to be happy

Birds-Ethan's favorite.  It had a green bird that he loved to point out.

The best learning book was Eggs and Chicks an Usborne book that talks about how eggs, nests, how birds hatch, etc.

another great learning book The Best Nest, we've read this before when we learned about nests.  Brielle loved it then and still loved it this week.

Other activities this week

we can't go a single day without Ethan looking something like this.  He loves to eat, and he is MESSY!

James' friend from work is having a baby.  I was volunteered to make a cake for the baby shower.

Saturday night we took the train to LA for Lissy's birthday.  The kids LOVED it.

Having a hot-tub in our complex is a favorite for all of us.  Grandma Finlay got the kids these great swim-suit coverups for Valentines day.