Beginning with Inquiry in Kindergarten: Will they hatch? Looking Closely at a bird's nest.

I was able to find an empty birds nest several weeks ago, and brought it into the classroom for the kiddos to see. They were all quite intrigued by it and several stayed to draw pictures of what they saw. We had many discussions about what the birds used to make this nest, what kind of bird made this nest, and where would the bird go now that the nest is gone?

I wonder what bird made this nest?

Then we receive a special gift on loan from our teacher librarian. She gave us a nest with three blue eggs inside. We made sure the kiddos knew that this nest had been abandoned by the momma bird and that is why it was ok to bring it to school for us to observe. We took care to place the nest and box in a large plastic bag so that our little hands wouldn't get tempted to touch and hurt the eggs.

Comparing the two nests.

"The momma bird must have left this feather
to let the babies know that are safe."

There was lots of observing and questioning about these eggs and what kind of bird may have laid them.

Our bird's nest inquiry board.

We watched a video showing three blue eggs in a nest in the process of hatching. This lead us to believe the eggs in our nest are from a robin - just like in the video. I love the media to real life connections our kiddos make.

A few of the kiddos decided that the empty nest also should have eggs in it for the momma bird to look after. So they busily began making blue eggs out of playdoh. Another kiddo came by later in the day to witness these home made eggs, and worried that the momma couldn't come and keep them warm so she began looking for a blanket to wrap them in. Unfortunately our blankets are all too big for this nest, so after more searching, CY decided that our coloured feathers would be an excellent way to keep the eggs warm.