St. Joseph's Academy for Wayward Children (or, as I like to call it, "Hey Kids!"), uses an eclectic approach incorporating Montessori, Charlotte Mason, Classical education, and free printable worksheets.

Part of our curriculum this semester involves nature study - specifically the nature of our backyard. Mr P made a bird feeder at Scouts, and we have that hanging in the front yard; we throw spilled oatmeal and grapenuts on the deck in the backyard. We have a large window in our dining room that looks out over the deck and we bird watch. We have a flock of cardinals (college of cardinals?) that interrupted our history lesson last week, and the children are becoming more observant about the birds we see.

But, what the heck are these things? I can identify a cardinal and a blue jay, and that's about it. Enter WhatBird. Click on "Visual Search", and you can enter where you saw it, what color the feathers are, how big it was, and more and it will narrow down your choices. Search by icon until you find the one you are looking for, and then you can pull up all kinds of information, including sound files of their calls!

Mr P also hates to draw; his little brother Mr S gets frustrated when he tries nature sketches. So I print out these coloring pages in the shape closest to the bird they chose, and they color in the plumage to add to our book.

Here's Mr S's House Finch (he informed me that he couldn't find the white crayon so he used yellow, but the yellow should be white. I guess it didn't occur to him to leave the white areas uncolored.)


Here's WhatBird.com's House Finch. Pretty close, huh!

WhatBird works for me! For more tips, visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer!

UPDATE: Get the scoop on The Great Backyard Bird Count here.

Labels: education, Works For Me Wednesday