Summer 2019: Bird Week

Week two of summer 2019 was Bird Week, as requested by Zane. I have no idea where this idea came from, and I was skeptical about how fun this would be, at first. However, I'm happy to report bird week was a HUGE success.


We started the week off with a trip to the library to check out all the books we could find on various different birds. Zane read a lot of these to us while we were driving around town running errands. We learned important words like flock and migration. We discussed the different between a raptor and other birds. Which of course led to the discussion about birds being dinosaurs, which they already knew. We learned how to tell by looking at a birds beak what they eat and we discussed different regions where each bird could be found. It quickly became obvious that we needed to take a trip to the zoo to see some birds.


Tuesday we hit the zoo bright and early, with unseasonably cool temperatures making our day that much better. We saw parrots (red and blue), peacocks, fed the lorikeets, and learned the difference between Chilean pink flamingos (lighter shade of pink) and American flamingos (they do not live in the US btw). We of course had to make a quick pit stop by the herpetarium to check on the snakes and we had a quick carousel ride, but then we were back in search of the aviary (another new word we learned this week).

 

 Chilean flamingos

 American flamingos

"Snake go sleep sleep."-T

The aviary is not easy to find and because of this it is not somewhere we visit very often. There were all sorts of birds in the aviary though including a hornbill, like Zazu in the lion king. Turns out those birds are not very big. Have a mentioned I'm learning a lot during our themed weeks as well. Thatcher was a huge fan of the duck that had a blue bill and he talked to him for quite a while.









 Going to the zoo on a search for very specific animals makes the trip seem much more like an adventure. There was also no room for arguing about where we should go next or who wanted to see what. It was bird we and we were on a mission to see as many birds as possible.

I worked that Wednesday so Thursday we were back at it with feather experiments and learning about carrier pigeons. Able had told us Tuesday that we needed to go to the American Pigeon Museum and Library which apparently is in OKC and is run by a fan of the spice shop. So on Thursday we educated ourselves (via youtube videos mainly) about carrier pigeons in WWI and WWII. Also about pigeon racing, which I had no idea was ever a thing, but apparently still exists. The queen still has her very own pigeon racing area. At rest time we watched the movie Valiant, which is about carrier pigeons.



Also on Thursday we had our most successful theme week experiment/learning time. We tried to do our experiment while using, and learning about, the scientific method. We formed hypothesizes, gathered data, conducted an experiment, recorded our results, discussed variables that we could and could not control, and then tried to analyze our results to see if we had proven anything (we had not).
The experiment was testing what would help a feather fly further when blowing it out of a different length straws. All the feathers were measured, date recorded, then we blew each feather out of straws and measured the distances they went. We did not account for ceiling fans or general lung size of our two scientists which both could greatly affect results. The boys loved measuring and comparing who got what color to go farthest. There was math involved, writing, science, and generally using their brains on a rainy day instead of watching TV. This was a huge win!

 Before we started our experiment we learned the parts of a feather and discussed the importance of feathers in Native American culture, because I love Native American culture. Everyone drew their own feather as well, including me, of course.

 We ended Bird Week with a trip to the American Pigeon Museum and Library. I had set expectations very low as I thought we might be going to see a room with pigeon pictures in it. However, I'm happy to report I was pleasantly surprised by the pigeon museum. There were live birds out front for the boys to look at while we waited for the volunteer to come open the doors. It's almost like there aren't usually people lined up outside the pigeon museum when it opens everyday. We learned that there are some pigeons that are bread to not have any beaks, which seams cruel, but the nice worker lady assured us that they survive just fine, but couldn't tell us what benefit not having a beak would have.

 This guy might be my favorite.

 There was a lot of information and different artifacts from when pigeons were used during war. We saw the cages they were carried in and learned how they trained them to always come back to the base. My favorite thing were the tiny little glass containers and little tiny bird backpacks that they used to put messages in, so interesting.

Look at this tiny sling they carried a bird in, how crazy!

 Look at the tiny backpack on that pigeon!!!!

 There was a kids area with origami pigeons, pigeon books, and scavenger hunts to do around the museum. Don't get me wrong there were also lots of paintings, pictures, and statues of pigeons, but all very interesting and the boys had a great time taking it all in. I think we could have easily spent more time there had Thatcher not been running around trying to destroy things, like two  year olds do.

 Here are the insides of pigeon. We had read about how birds have gullets and other body parts that differ from other animals so Zane really enjoyed looking at this.

 All in all it was lots of fun and we left with APM (American Pigeon Museum) tshirts and cards because frankly I felt like they surely could use the money.

We of course also talked about types of eggs, how birds make different kinds of nests depending on where they live, and we discussed the different types of birds that you can see where we live. We read books on why geese fly in a V pattern, bald eagles, and obviously all of our penguin books, which is saying a lot. Bird week was much more successful than plant week and I finished the week having learned all sorts of things as well. Next up: Baseball Week