Bird Study for 3rd Grader

[3MisMe]

Our DS9 recently told me he would like to study birds. This is an exciting development. School is really hard for him and him asking to add a subject is a huge surprise. He's only recently become a proficient reader and is reading leaps and bounds beyond were he was this time last year. I'm so proud of him (and me 😆) for not giving up. 

Today, he read the first chapter of The Burgess Bird Book for Children then explored the House Wren entries in a Peterson Field Guide, National Geographic Field Guide, and DK Bird Visual Guide (all borrowed from the library). We then found samples of the songs and sounds of House Wrens on YouTube. I'm thinking to add a How To Draw a Wren and some basic bird identification printables.

We're going to try and continue this process through each chapter of The Burgess Bird Book plus give him lots of outside time with his binoculars and a notebook. Is there anything else that's super low cost or free you would suggest? I can think of and find lots of $$$ fun things to add but I'm struggling to think of possibilities that fit in my no budget budget. 😜

[Brittany1116]

The Good and the Beautiful has a bird unit study. They are rewriting it and the original version is for sale at a steep discount at the moment. 

[SilverMoon]

Check out Teachers Pay Teachers! It's like an academic Etsy that really shines in quirky moments like these. I popped Burgess bird book in the search and there were several fun options. 

My 14yo had a bird year around that age. They also did realistic coloring pages for each bird and we found quite a few of them in the Draw Write Now series. I'm sure I just googled up a homeschooler blog with the coloring pages linked up but it's been too long to remember specifics. 

[Mona]

My kids fell in love with birds around that age, too. We read a couple pages of Birds, Nests, and Eggs book each day. We also put an acrylic window bird feeder outside the room where we sit and do our schooling like this one, and whenever a bird visited, my children took turns looking up the bird in this field guide to find out more about it. Of course, you can choose your favorite guide, but I was glad that even though the pictures in our guide were not actual photos, but paintings, it still worked well. They have always retained all that information about what kind of bird it was and how to tell if it was male or female and other tidbits. It was very enjoyable.  

 

[ArtHaus]

We just finished a bird unit and my boys loved it! Definitely check out The Cornell Lab for Ornithology. It is an excellent resource! Obviously, YouTube is a great free resource, and incorporating a bird feeder is great for bird identification, we learned so much about the birds that live in our state.

[Mona]

I also like the Dover Coloring Books found here for my daughter, but my son didn’t like coloring.  

[ScoutTN]

Seconding Cornell Ornithology! They have loads of great resources. Not inexpensive, though.

Best thing we did with bird study was to connect with a local nature center and birding groups. Bird banding! Hummingbird migration! Bird watching in various ecological systems at various times of the year. (Creekside, pond, woods, meadows, all 4 seasons) Loads of senior adults are birders and are thrilled to share their hobby with children! And all free and hand-on/active. 
 

Our nature center has field packs for kids to use. We got our kids decent binoculars on Amazon for about $20 around age 10. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by ScoutTN

[Lucy the Valiant]

BirdNet is a FREE and truly fantastic app that teaches the various birdcalls. (PlantNet is its plant companion; also excellent and free.)

[Tanager]

Sit spots are great for seeing bird language in action. Song birds are the best to start with. Birds don’t just sing, but talk, they warn others of danger. Listening to the birds is a great way to get in touch with the natural world and with ourselves. John Young is a great resource: 

 

[HomeAgain]

I was just on Project Gutenberg last week and there was an Elementary Bird Book.  It has short stories and sketches for children.

Youngest ds became very interested in birds around age 7.  We found an area at our state park that was set up as a bird watching station - fenced in, different feeding stations, with a viewing section looking into the sanctuary area.  We ended up making bird feeders at home, learned a lot about the local birds and different types of nests, looking at Audubon books, sketching our own birds, moving into how birds' bones work ->story of Daedelus & Icarus -> Leonardo..then tessellations with Escher...

We also ended up with  a really awesome "Build Your Own" bird book.  It's set up to look like a mail order catalogue with different features available for each body part.  Like on the feet page you had options of webbed, clawed, small, large, blue, feathered...lol.  It definitely helped him pay attention to the details while bird watching so he could see what the diets might be.

[cintinative]

If you have time and there is a local state park or county park, there may be a naturalist or volunteer that would love to be of help. One of our state parks has a nature center with a bird observation area with multiple feeders. Inside the room are all sorts of books, field guides and fun interactive things for kids. I have found bird watchers to be particularly passionate about their hobby and most love to share that passion with others. 

 

 

[Green Bean]

Life of Birds dvd is excellent.

Memoria Press has a Bird study. Skip the guide, buy the text.

 

[Zoo Keeper]

My young bird lover is reading The First Book of Birds for fun.   https://archive.org/details/firstbookofbirds00willrich/page/n1/mode/2up

[El...]

We really liked reading this book from our library. The art is gorgeous. What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing--What Birds Are Doing, and Why (Sibley Guides) https://a.co/d/5RPNmch

 

[Michelle in IL2]

Merlin Bird ID (put out by Cornell Lab of Ornithology) is a super awesome free app that helps with IDing birds. It will ask you some basic questions about the bird: size, color, what it was doing, a couple others and uses your location to give you possibilities. There is also a sound ID as well. You just turn it on and it listens to the birds sounds around you and tells you what birds it is hearing. So. Very. Cool. 
 

I have a 13-year old bird lover who began at a similar age as yours and with the Burgess Book, Field guides, bird feeders, and a sketch book. Enjoy it!

[Balletbaker]

I know you want no/low cost - but we're doing a bird study right now and LOVING this book. Maybe you can find it through your library or interlibrary loan?  It has all different bird songs programmed in. So many children's books with sound just play 8-10 sounds - this one has multiple entries for most birds, so that you can identify what bird it is and what they are saying.  We live in the West so we got this one, but there are versions for all different parts of the US. I got the recommendation for the book from a Cornell Ornithology class about learning about birds with children. We read a chapter of the Burgess Birds book, find it in our Peterson guide, find the songs in this book, and then do a coloring sheet focusing on the coloring/markings that are distinctive. I'm supplementing with other picture books about birds in our home library and picture books about birds from the library.