Jump to content

Menu

How to spread MP Birds over full year, or should I?


Trilliumlady
 Share

Recommended Posts

So I’m leaning heavily towards using Memoria Press Birds for DS who will be in 4th next year.  He loves birds and has multiple guides already and when asked he said he’d prefer this Birds course to others I mentioned.  

My question is - it appears it is not normally used over a full year, but is combined with HIstory of Medicine.  I’m not interested in this for him in 4th.  Would it work to either: 1. Combine it with Mammals 2. Add something (? Not sure what this would be?) to stretch it out? Or 3. Use as is and just enjoy doing science once a week on something he loves and call it good.

I’d love any ideas!

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you could do it either of the 3 ways you listed, either combining it with something else, or stretching it out, or just doing it once a week. My son did some practical hands-on stuff when he did it (but it's stuff he does anyway because he loves birds) like putting up all sorts of feeders and bird houses. Or nature walks where you look for and identify different birds. Or just get all the bird books you can from the library. There are lots of those. My son really enjoyed this course.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We just received this course in the mail yesterday.  (The complete set.   OH MY, it is even cooler in person.    Memoria press makes the *BEST* nature study programs.    

We have done their astronomy and bug programs.   We do it all in one long day each week.  First, we do indoor stuff.  (Drill birds and songs, do the readings, etc.)   After that, we go out in nature.   We have found that inviting friends on our walk helps us stay accountable to our plan.  I am the type of person who will often skip nature study when I feel we are "behind" in our other subjects.   (And quite frankly, we are always "behind".)   hahaha  So meeting others up at the nature area REALLY helps.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We LOVED MP birds. It was one of my favorite school years. The year we did it we did birds several other ways to make it fill a lot of our year.

We decided to learn about birds and help them  with scouts that year too for my dd's bronze award project . First thing we did was find a local Audobon society. We attended a few meetings and then participated in the Christmas Bird Count census with them. Then there is the Great Backyard Bird census in February. We participated year, years later still.  Then dds got birdhouse materials donated from a builder's store and gave a birdhouse building class to younger scouts and taught them about how to help birds with what they'd learned. That was a big project.

Then, our co-op was doing an Apologia Flying creatures year which worked out perfectly. So my ydd did that class and notebook with them. It covered other topics besides birds, but there was a lot on birds. This also provided a lot of experiments that MP doesn't give. It also included reading lists for literature that we used to make it a bird year in as many subjects as possible. It actually was a really good compliment, especially the notebook. I liked it better than the MP workbook, which we mainly did orally.

And to finish our year we went to the extension center of our local community college which has a program of lending incubators and eggs to schools and from them we hatched two sets of eggs, quail and chicken. 

We also found several spots for bird watching (some we learned from the Audobon society and wouldn't have found if not for them!) And we went often with our Peterson coloring field guides. We did that bird  year 6 years ago, and we still take our field guides and go birdwatching. That year made a big impression on us. One of my favorites ever. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...