Birds: Part 1
Penguins, Bald Eagles, and Nests

Birds: what a broad topic! We have so many specimens, books, and activity ideas, that this subject will have to be broken into many parts. Evie requested to learn about penguins and bald eagles first, so that is where we started. We finally have some nice, warm, sunny weather to go outside and play in. Early this morning, we went out into the yard and constructed a people-sized eagle nest. This set the stage for some really great pretend play.


Books

• Soaring Bald Eagles by Kathleen Martin-James
• Penguin Puzzle (Magic School Bus Chapter Book) by Judith Bauer Stamper
• National Geographic Readers: Penguins! by Anne Schreiber
• Antarctica by Helen Cowcher
• Hey, Al by Arthur Yorinks
• Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman
• Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester
• Baby Penguins Everywhere by Melissa Guion

Activities

• Pretend play: Build a nest out of branches and sticks that is large enough for a couple of people to sit in. Toddlers enjoy the repetitive nature of fetching objects for a task like this. Gather as many sticks as your toddler has patience for. Pretend you are bald eagle parents constructing a nest for your eggs. When we had completed our nest, Evie told me to sit in it with her baby brother, and we were her "eaglets." She flapped her wings and went around the yard "fishing." Once she had caught a fish (a leaf, usually) in her talons, she would bring it back to shred it with her sharp beak and feed it to the eaglets. We took turns being the eaglet or the mama bird. This killed at least an hour. 

• Pretend Play: Emperor penguins. Balance a soccer ball, a large plastic egg, or something similar on top of your feet. Waddle around and try to keep it on your feet. See who can shuffle the fastest. Explain how male Emperor penguins keep the eggs warm while the females go to sea to find food. Then, when the eggs hatch, they switch and the males go to sea. 

• Craft: Penguin sticker scene. We took a piece of white paper and tore it (as opposed to cutting, so we could have softer lines) into several pieces. Next, we glued these pieces to a sheet of blue construction paper. There's the water and ice. Then we used penguin stickers to complete the scene.