My 4th grader asked to learn about birds this year, so I started searching around for a good curriculum kit. I didn't find anything that looked like it would work for us, so I set out to put together my own bird study. I wrote a series of blog posts sharing about what we covered and the activities and resources we ended up using for each sub topic. Below are links to each of those posts.
What Makes a Bird a Bird?
Birds are a fascinating group of animals that have adapted to live in a wide variety of habitats. They can be found on every continent on Earth, from the hot dry savannas of Africa to the frozen tundra of Antarctica. They are a highly varied group, but there are several characteristics that all birds share, regardless of habitat or diet:
-All birds are vertabrates, which means they have a backbone. Birds also have a lightweight but strong bone structure, which helps make flight possible.
-Birds are endothermic (warm blooded) and have a 4 chambered heart.
-Birds have wings and are covered with feathers.
-Birds don't have teeth, but instead have a bony beak for catching, tearing, and shredding food. And instead of chewing their food, birds have an extra digestive organ called a gizzard for mechanical digestion.
Activities and Resources for Learning About Birds
If you would like a printable version of a bird unit study, I have one available here: All About Birds Printable Unit Study.
Birds are a fascinating group of animals that have adapted to live in a wide variety of habitats. They can be found on every continent on Earth, from the hot dry savannas of Africa to the frozen tundra of Antarctica. They are a highly varied group, but there are several characteristics that all birds share, regardless of habitat or diet:
-All birds are vertabrates, which means they have a backbone. Birds also have a lightweight but strong bone structure, which helps make flight possible.
-Birds are endothermic (warm blooded) and have a 4 chambered heart.
-Birds have wings and are covered with feathers.
-Birds don't have teeth, but instead have a bony beak for catching, tearing, and shredding food. And instead of chewing their food, birds have an extra digestive organ called a gizzard for mechanical digestion.
Activities and Resources for Learning About Birds
Each of the links below takes you to a post with activity ideas, general information, and links to videos and other resources for learning about that particular sub-topic.
-Learning About Birds: Beaks and Diet
Information about the different types of bird beaks and instructions for a fun hands on activity for exploring the relationship between beak type and diet.
-Learning About Bird Nests
Information about the different types of nests that birds can build and instructions for a bird nest experiment.
-Learning About Birds: Flight and Migration
Information about bird migration and instructions for two activities that demonstrate why thrust and lift are necessary for flight.
-Learning About Birds: Feather Investigation
Ideas and activities for learning about feathers.
-Learning About Birds: Avian Egg Investigation
Ideas and activities for learning about bird eggs.
Types of Birds
Birds belong to the animal kingdom, the phylum Chordata (animals with backbones), and the class Avies. They are further broken down into 23 orders of birds, and then even further into 82 families and thousands of different species, each with unique characteristics. Since there are just so many different types of birds out there, there's not really any practical way to learn about all of them. We decided to choose a few well known groups to study in depth.
Click the links for information and learning activities for each one.
Additional Resources
Here are a few additional online resources about birds:
-Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell University of Ornithology
-All About Birds from The Cornell Lab
-Birding With Children
-All About Birds video from FreeSchool
-Learning About Birds: Beaks and Diet
Information about the different types of bird beaks and instructions for a fun hands on activity for exploring the relationship between beak type and diet.
-Learning About Bird Nests
Information about the different types of nests that birds can build and instructions for a bird nest experiment.
-Learning About Birds: Flight and Migration
Information about bird migration and instructions for two activities that demonstrate why thrust and lift are necessary for flight.
-Learning About Birds: Feather Investigation
Ideas and activities for learning about feathers.
-Learning About Birds: Avian Egg Investigation
Ideas and activities for learning about bird eggs.
Types of Birds
Birds belong to the animal kingdom, the phylum Chordata (animals with backbones), and the class Avies. They are further broken down into 23 orders of birds, and then even further into 82 families and thousands of different species, each with unique characteristics. Since there are just so many different types of birds out there, there's not really any practical way to learn about all of them. We decided to choose a few well known groups to study in depth.
Click the links for information and learning activities for each one.
Here are a few additional online resources about birds:
-Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell University of Ornithology
-All About Birds from The Cornell Lab
-Birding With Children
-All About Birds video from FreeSchool
-All About Bird Anatomy from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
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