Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Riki's Birdhouse

Riki's Birdhouse by Monica Wellington is the first children's book I have found about bluebirds and if you were following me this past month one of my slices was about bluebird monitoring with my kindergarten students.  Riki is a bird-watcher and has a new pair of birds visit his yard.  Riki makes a plan for keeping this new pair of birds in his yard.  Several pages show plans and construction for a bluebird house.  When winter comes, Riki spends time preparing food for the birds.  When spring comes, Riki sets out supplies to help birds make their nests.  During the summer the sunflowers grow and seeds can be harvested for birdseed for the following winter.  This book is a great resource to introduce young children to bluebird monitoring.  It gave me some ideas for growing sunflowers seeds to help fill our bird feeders, setting out string and fabric for nest building, and for making winter food treats for birds.  For anyone interested in bluebird monitoring on their own there are directions on how to make a feeder, install a feeder, resources and reasons for bluebird monitoring on the last two pages.  There are also directions for Bird Food Cupcakes.  I think this will be a book we will visit all year long as we observe Ohio birds.  Within the gouache painted illustrations the reader will notice a bird journal with small notes Riki is keeping as the story progresses.  We started our own bluebird journals yesterday and today.

1 comment:

  1. I happened across your blog and I'm so happy you found my book about bluebirds! I'm really looking forward to hearing news about your bluebird nesting boxes mentioned a few post ago - any activity so far? Do you think you will have baby blue birds?!

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