Science Club: John James Audubon

My group of Science Club kids is very excited about the idea of creating a Bird Art Exhibit (exhibit date TBD). This will be on a much smaller scale than our famous Museums, but will still have a lot of components. We've already brainstormed a few possible ideas:

• ostrich & emu egg paintings
• branch weavings
• needle felted birds displayed on my cast iron ornament tree
• nature walk sketches
• zentangle feather coloring pages
• knitted chickens
• egg collection
• feather collection
• nest collection
• mouse skull and bone drawings
• owl pellet display
• Did You Know? fact cards
• replica bird skulls
• replica bird tracks and ink pads
• Audubon stuffed birds with songs
• display of the books we have read
• nomenclature cards on birds of the world displayed on Biomes Map
• play bird songs CD

Friday, October 5

• record ocean water / spinach seed experiment observations
  (nothing has grown from the control seeds or the week 1 seeds)
• plant week 2 spinach seeds; start soaking soybean seeds
  (which all immediately sunk right to the bottom of our ocean water)
• copy data table from Heat 7 in Science journal; add ovenbird illustration from A Nest is Noisy; note questions

  

• look at branch weavings in progress; discuss areas of difficulty
• look at window nest box and the nest in it; look at collection of bird nests; look at robin nest illustration in Bird Egg Feather Nest

  

• sketch bird nests
• read Flute's Journey: The Life of a Wood Thrush by Lynne Cherry; discuss how birds know when to migrate

  

• examine blown-out ostrich egg and emu egg; mix paints and make paintings of eggs

Friday, October 12

• look at spinach seeds (one of the week 2 seeds has sprouted!) and sketch; look at our film-covered yellowish gross ocean water and decide to throw it out
• listen to song of the wood thrush, track 95, disc 2

  

• discuss Bird Art Exhibit
• discuss biography of John James Audubon and the mystery surrounding his birth; discuss Constance Rourke's 1937 Newbery honor book Audubon and her belief that he is the missing Dauphin who was saved during the French Revolution as Marie Antoinette and her husband were beheaded; read from pages 3-11 of the book
• read The Boy Who Drew Birds by Jacqueline Davies

  

• look at examples of some of Audubon's paintings
• do drawing exercises from the Live Education! second grade book Drawing Simple Animal Forms
  page 3 - Three Archetypal Forms
  page 4 - owl
  page 5 - duckling, sparrow, crow, dove
  page 8 - great blue heron
  page 9 - stork
• look at bird guide; begin to needle felt birds

  

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