January Calendar Days & National Bird Day freebies

Here is a list of some celebrated National Holidays in January – you may find a few surprising ones! You might have fun wearing some new socks on National Argyle Day or start a classroom band on National Kazoo Day. 🙂
 

I’m anxious to get back to my classroom and start working on Arctic animal studies! It’s one of my favorites. You can check out my best-seller: Arctic Animal Research Pages by clicking here. So, it doesn’t seem like a great time for me to celebrate National Bird Day! However, there are some great ideas and freebies out there for birds. I’ve listed some at the end of this post. You could use them on Monday or just hold onto these ideas until spring. Another way to incorporate two themes: focus on birds in the Arctic! They just happen to be some of the most fascinating birds that I’ve studied! A few of my favorites are the Arctic Tern, Peregrine Falcon & Snowy Owl.

The small Arctic Tern circumnavigates the globe during migration. They are also very territorial and will attack animals (or people!) who come near the next. I also just found out that they can hover!

I can usually trick my 1st graders by asking them to name the fastest animal. Most of them will say the cheetah. Wrong! The cheetah is the fastest land animal and can reach speeds of 70 mph. The peregrine falcon can reach speeds of 200 mph while diving! Incredible! My students already know this since I can never wait until January to teach it! Plus, there was a passenger on board the Mayflower who was named Peregrine (Peregrine White – He was actually born after they arrived and while they were still anchored in the harbor). This year, one of my littles, drew that name for their “Pilgrim Name” and so they definitely had to learn about that bird. I’m curious as to why that name was chosen. I wonder if those birds were near the boat during their voyage?

Everything about owls is so fascinating – owl pellets, asymmetrical ears, variety of homes, etc. There is a wealth of information to keep young learners interested. Snowy Owls are one of the animals in my Arctic Animals unit and there is also an All About Owls product that helps students learn about owls while learning new vocabulary.

On to some general freebies and crafts about birds. 🙂

1) My friend, Chrystine, at Tweet Resources has made these awesome I have…Who Has… games. My kiddos love these games! It just so happens that there is a Bird Joke freebie game. I am SO excited to print this out and use it in my classroom. My 1st graders will love it!

2) I love this inspirational poster by Ben Clarance. It’s a great reminder to celebrate individuality!

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. – Henry van Dyke.

3) Montessori Print Shop has created a wonderful freebie to teach about bird adaptations and beaks.

4) Here is an easy bird feeder made with a cardboard tube. You can read about it @ The Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. 🙂 This seems like it would actually be a great project for this time of year. Does anyone know if they will come if you start leaving out food in the winter? Have they already found other food sources by then or are they always looking?

5) I chose this for a craft once for 1st-5th graders. They turned out so cute! It is bystephanielynn.com. You just need to cut out the template from the pages of an old book (Goodwill!) and then lightly ink the edge and apply a little glitter. Then, attach to a clothespin! Beautiful!

6) This is a freebie (sample) from my Animal Writing pages with word banks. Just click on the picture to download. I love to give the students a list of words related to what they are writing about. It gives them such confidence and helps them to become more detailed writers. They often have lots of info. – they just need practice to express it well!

Another bird resource to consider adding to your teaching resources is this wonderful book by Dianna Aston. She has a few more books like this (a butterfly one, etc.) and they are all fantastic! I hope she keeps creating them! I love that the front endpapers have pictures of the eggs and the back endpapers have pictures of the birds. You can spend a while just matching up the two!

I really should make a general bird unit! I absolutely love teaching about birds. 🙂 In addition to the products listed above, I also have one for Bald Eagles.

I hope that you’ve learned a bit about birds and found some new resources for your classroom. Thanks for visiting! I’d love to hear a comment or two! 🙂