Birds Part 2

Children's literature is heavily peppered with birds.  Probably everyone is familiar with these books:
 
 Love these!

We read these in our room, but we also spent time with Owl Babies.  It's a sweet book about three baby owls who aren't sure if their mommy is coming back.



We had a bag of props to go along with the story.  On Monday Mrs. O'Connor read the story and used the props, then prompted the Bunnies to retell the story and the props helped jog their memories.  On Tuesday the props and the book were in a basket in the book area of the room. 

All morning scenes like the one above played out again and again.  The children role played and practiced the language and dialogue they heard in the book. Yay!

At our "Office" table, there were pictures of birds in a basket.  Most of the pictures were from old calendars, nature magazines, or Christmas cards.  Joseph used the materials available to him and his wonderful imagination and made something fantastic.
He used scissors to snip around the edges of his paper. 
He used the stapler in the corners.
He used a glue stick to attach bird pictures.
He wrote the first letter of his name on a leaf and glued it on, too.
And, he even used some tape on the back side.

No where in our lesson plans did this appear as an art or literacy activity.  This was completely child-directed and independent.  We could have never planned for something this wonderful.  It was spontaneous and told us so much about Joseph and his skills.  When we give children time and materials, they create amazing things!