Week 11 Day 5

Book choices for today:

Feathers   Dorothy Patent
Feathers Not Just for Flying   Melissa Stewart
Funny Little Bird   Jennifer Yerkes
Feathers for Lunch   Lois Ehlert

Zoology: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Parts of a Feather and feather samples.

Zoology 16
What is it that only birds have? Feathers. That is how we know it is a bird. Birds have several kinds of feathers but the three main ones are flight feathers, down feathers, and body feathers. Down feathers are soft and fluffy. They are close to the birds body and help keep it warm. Flight feathers are those that help the bird to fly. Body, or contour feathers cover the birds body.
Let’s look at the parts of a feather. This is the shaft (use feather to show parts), it is the center of the feather like the trunk of a tree. This is the part called the vane. It is the flat part of the feather attached to both sides of the shaft. These are the barbs. They look like lines on the feather. This exposed part of the shaft is called the quill.
Do you think all birds can fly since they all have feathers? Penguins, kiwis, emus and the ostrich are birds that have feathers but do not fly.

Practical Life:

Feather Transfer – Children use a clothespin to transfer the feathers from one bowl to the next.

Button Feathers – I saw this idea on mymontessorijourney.com and just loved it, so I made one for the children.

Additional Work:

Bird Matching / Memory Game – These cards can be used for matching or a memory game.

Parts of a Turkey – Three -part matching cards.

Parts of a Turkey Booklet

Quill Writing – Make a ‘quill feather pen’ and provide ink or watered down black paint. The children can write their names using a feather pen.

Art:

Peacocks – Using a paper plates cut in half, colorful feathers, and sparkle beads children can make a peacock with its feathers spread opened. Add a peacock bird shape to the paper plate after the feathers and beads are added.

Bird Puppets – Children can glue feathers onto a bird shape and add a stick for a puppet.

Turkey Feathers – Children can add feathers to a turkey.

Peacock Puppet (feathers and tongue depressor or popsicle stick)

Bird Puppet (feathers and tongue depressor or popsicle stick)

Songs/poems:

Pretty Peacock
There was a pretty peacock
Who lived in the zoo
It had so many feathers
It didn’t know what to do
It shook them to the left
It shook them to the right
It shook them and it shook them
Right out of sight

Two Black Birds
Make two pairs of wings full of black feathers. Provide two chairs for children sit in and they can act out the poem, each one flying off and returning to the chair or hill.

Two black birds sitting on a hill
One named Jack and one named Jill.
Fly away Jack.
Fly away Jill
Come back Jack.
Come back Jill.

Science: (second circle)

Need for lesson – Two tomatoes and two cucumbers. Have one of each cut to expose the seeds.

Science 25
How do we know if a food is a fruit? It has seeds. A fruit is the part of a flowering plant that has seeds. This is a tomato. Most people do not know a tomato is a fruit. They often think of it as a vegetable. Here is a tomato that I cut in half. Do you see any seeds in this tomato? If is has seeds it is a ________. Tomatoes are really fruits. This is a cucumber. It is another food people often think of as a vegetable. Let’s look at the inside of a cucumber. Can you see seeds? It is a fruit!
Where do we get fruit? Apples come from apple trees. Oranges, lemons, and limes also come from trees. We learned about pumpkins growing on a vine. So fruits are grown from plants. They are from flowering plants, because a fruit is the part of a flowering plant.