Learn about Your Local Birds

Fall is a great time to learn about and observe the birds in your area, but you can do this any time of year. Whether you’re watching from a backyard or a playground, you’re sure to find a few birds and can learn about the birds that are native to your region in any case.

If you do see birds at home or where your classroom is, the Merlin app is a great one (if your school allows phones). If you don’t already know it, it listens to the sounds around you and can identify birds based on their calls. Very cool and a reason for kids to be quiet while you’re observing nature. Having an old fashioned paper guidebook to the birds where you live is also a great idea because kids can use it to look up birds and it’s just fun to have in the science center.

The specific birds involved in your learning will vary depending on where you live, but here are some bird activities you can do with your kids at home or in the classroom.

Natural Beach Living set up a simple bird nature study center that includes bird books and feathers in front of a big window. There are also some printables you’ll find links to in this post including three part cards and bird observation charts for birds local to them and a bird unit study with lots of great printables (this is a paid resource).

Adventure in a Box has a printable birds of the world bingo game, which might inspire you to learn more about some of the 48 different birds included, from emu to snowy owl, grackle to Atlantic puffin.

If you’re American you’ll enjoy these state bird coloring pages from Flanders Family Home Life. If I can count, only 48 states are listed (which I wouldn’t have noticed except Arkansas isn’t there; it’s one of many whose state bird is the mockingbird). Print out all of them or just your home state, or give each child a bird to research and color to do a presentation in the classroom.

And you can learn more about the different types of bird nests and see if you can observe any of them on a nature walk with this guide to bird nests from Fun Mom Printables on Etsy. It includes information about eight types of nests with drawings and three part cards.

This time of year is a great time for pulling out all the apple and pumpkin themed worksheets to add a little seasonal fun to your learning. Let’s take a look at some fun pumpkin themed worksheets for the classroom or homeschool.

If you want some pumpkin printables that are actually about pumpkins, check out the pumpkin life cycle worksheets from 24 Hour Family that include parts of a pumpkin, life cycle, vocabulary, shape and counting activities. Rock Your Homeschool also has a cute printable and foldable life cycle worksheet for the life cycle of a pumpkin that kids can color and put together.

Inspire the Mom has ideas for a pumpkin unit study as well as printables (free with email signup) that include parts of the pumpkin, letter recognition, lesson plans and more. The blog post also includes more ideas for things like pretend play and centers, as well as books and videos with a pumpkin theme you can include in your study.

Do some pumpkin themed color by number with these printable coloring pages from The Artisan Life. Or try your hand at pumpkin I-spy with this printable from The Best Ideas for Kids.

Work on shape recognition and matching with this color, cut and paste activity from Free 4 Classrooms. And get some cutting practice with a pumpkin twist with these worksheets from Simple Everyday Mom.

These last two have a bunch of different fall themed worksheets to choose from, some of which include pumpkins. Willa Bean and Co. has a pumpkin themed alphabet set that includes pumpkins with the letters inside them and sets of upper and lower case letters on seeds you can use for matching.

And Worksheeto has a bunch of fall themed phonics worksheets, including pumpkin sight words with fall themed words and pumpkin letter matching.

For more pumpkin learning fun, see our pumpkin printables for kids and pumpkin STEM activities lists.

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