Last Thursday, students enjoyed travelling to Sabin's Pasture to launch our new science unit on birds. Students listened and looked for signs of birds on their way to Sabin's, stopping to notice each bird's distinct calls. While at Sabin's studenets learned and practiced a variety of bird calls and discussed the reasons for why and when bird's use their calls. Students were surprised to learn that some birds have multiple calls and that they use them for different scenarios. INQUIRE with your child what bird has 2 calls and when they use each one. For the exploration time, students worked in partners to prepare a nest for a predator/prey bird game. Partners, who chose a bird to be for the day, worked together to design a safe nest for their eggs (golf balls). Once the nests for suitable to hold an egg, they had to go hunt for food for their young. The birds had a difficult job, however, because predators would sneak up on their nest to steal the egg. Quick to get back to their nest, the only way to scare off the predators was to use the bird's call - the forest was soon full of birds singing away, hoping to scare off predators (adults) who were in search of the eggs. A great day was had by all!
