The largest varieties of vertebrate, meaning they have a skeleton, are birds with about 10,000 species.  Birds have feathers, a beak with no teeth, and wings. Most can fly, with some exceptions like penguins.  Some birds, especially parrots, are among the most intelligent animals.  Birds lay hard-shelled eggs in a nest and their parents sit on them to keep them warm until the baby birds’ hatch.  Most birds take care of their babies feeding them and teaching them how to fly.  Many birds take long distance annual migrations flying together in flocks, some fly south to warmer weather in winter, and back north during the summer traveling 1,800 miles or more.  (geese and ducks).  Birds are social; they communicate using visual signals, calls and songs, and participate in social behaviors including hunting.  Birds are important to our lives, mostly as sources of food from farming (chickens and turkeys) or hunting (pheasants).  Some birds are popular as pets, particularly songbirds like canaries. Other uses include the collection of their

Infants: Bird Baths – Have you ever watched a bird take a bath?  Setting up a bird bath is a great way to bring birds into the yard.  Use a plastic round dish pan about 3-4 inches deep.  (Don’t use metal - it will get too hot in the summer, and freeze in the winter.)  Keep it filled with 2 inches of water.  Set it on top of a cement block or a tree stump.  Let the infants see which birds come to visit.

Toddlers:  Bird Calls - The children will be surprised to learn that different birds have different songs.  Go to the local library and find a tape or CD of different bird calls.

Have them practice some of the different calls just for fun.  Try the Bobwhite, which says it’s name bob white - bob white - bob white or the Chickadee who says chick-a-dee-dee-dee or the Whippoorwill who also says it’s name whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.

Preschool:  Bird puppets – The following activity is from my book Teaching with Heart… Using the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Six Pence make bird puppets out of small envelopes.  Have the children tuck in the flap, then pull the middle out to make a diamond shape.  Flatten the corners and fold in half so the children can tuck their hand inside the fold.  Have the children decorate them with feathers.  These can be used as puppets or hung from the ceiling as mobiles or glued onto a large sheet of newsprint as a collage.

A wise old owl sat on an oak.  The more he saw the less he spoke.  The less he spoke the more he heard.  Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?         By Edward Hersey Richards