Since it’s FINALLY getting warm here, Truman and I had our morning coffee on the patio and looked for birds.

My son’s become quite the bird enthusiast ever since his uncle bought him the book Birding for Children by Art Minton and illustrated by Patrick Grogan. Truman has not only memorized what each of the birds looks like, he also knows that Flickers are zygodactyls and Chickadees would like gymnastics.

 
We’ve been doing a lot of bird watching lately. Last weekend Truman found the Sibley’s bird book on our porch and spent much of the afternoons studying new birds and their migration …read more

In Bird Watching with Youngsters, I discussed birds and in another post, Keeping a Bird Watching Journal.  One of the journal activities I mentioned was writing a story or poem about the birds you and your youngsters see.  You/they may want to read some bird stories or poetry first to get an idea of the type of writing you’d like to do.
*Poetry – Your poem can be of any type, rhyming or free verse, about one bird or the numbers of birds you see around your home or on a trip.
*Nature Story – I often wrote these for children’s magazines.  …read more

Keeping a bird watching journal provides an enjoyable summer activity for youngsters and the adults.    Actually this can be a year round project, but since it’s mid-spring, let’s start yours now.
There are various ways you can do this:

Simply keep a list of the birds you see.
List the birds and write something about them.
Add a sketch to the list and description.
Write a story or poem about the birds you see.
Make a papier mache model of a bird…or use other materials for a bird sculpture.
Make a painting of some of these birds you see and list.

In my anthology, Tales of Adventure and Discovery, …read more