Bird Week - Day 2

We spent the first half of the day getting everyone fed and dressed and organized before heading to the library. You really underestimate sometimes how very long it takes to prepare three small kids for the day. Especially if you have to go somewhere.

Story time at our local library is at 11:15, and it's only about six minutes from our house. So naturally, we started to leave at 10:15. And somehow - between mismatched socks, a four-year-old fit about not bringing his own books to the library, a two-year-old fit about not getting his shoes on right but not wanting help, and a little pig-tailed princess who ran off giggling about who knows what - we squeaked into the parking lot at 11:06. Just enough time to play with some toys before they invited us in for stories.

Story time is always fun for the kids, although none of my kids ever participate in the silly songs or movements. We don't get out much with other kids, so I assume that's why. But today was encouraging, as Miles and Teyla both were starting to do as the others did. Deker still needs some prodding, one day he'll come around.

After books were chosen, and the car was reloaded, we met Kyle for lunch in between jobs. It was nice to hang out with Dad a little before heading home for naps.

Again, not a whole lot of birdie things went on here today. Ugh. I'll make it up tomorrow, I promise. But I have to head to town AGAIN in the morning, to hit the post office and get an injection at the doctors office a half hour away. Might have to try to squeeze in some activities before we leave this time. I'm hoping to work on egg and nest related things in the afternoon.

We did begin the boy's Bird Journals after dinner. I made stickers using graphics from exploringnature.org and my Silhouette cutting machine, all of birds that I know are local and we've seen (or hope to see) near our feeder.



I asked them to color a small page of a bird of their choosing, trying their best to make them look like the actual birds. Matching the bird's colors and markings seemed a little out of their league, but I asked anyway. At two and four, I wasn't expecting much cooperation or a comparable end result - but I was reminded once again that I don't give these kids enough credit some days.

Deker chose to do his cardinals, and Miles chose a woodpecker.



They added a sticker of that bird to the page for reference, and I wrote Deker's observations on his page. I must saw I was pleasantly surprised at the level of attention the two of them gave to this little project.



Do you see how well Deker matched the male and female markings? And he didn't just color in those black eye patches, he drew them first.



More stickers were necessary to decorate the front.

When you lay it all out like this, it doesn't seem like I did much for school today. But I do count the library trip as school, and we did come home with a few new bird books to read. Besides, we barely got through dinner because the kids were constantly screeching when a bird came to the feeder, and telling us all about them and what they were doing. Miles didn't even finish his fruit - now that says something.

All-in-all, today was pretty good. Hoping to have a more interesting Bird Week post for you tomorrow, but we'll just see how things go!