Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Learning About Extinct and Prehistoric Birds - Like the Dodo and Dromornithidae


D is for Dodo Bird and DromornithidaeYesterday we learned about extinct and prehistoric birds. We spent the afternoon outdoors at our favorite nature center reading some books including 2 of our favorite Apologia's Flying Creatures and Master Books The World of Animals. We learned about several extinct birds like the Dodo, Passenger Pigeon, Great Auk and Red Rail. And we learned about prehistoric birds like the Archaeopteryx, Bambiraptor, Caudipteryx and Dromornithidae.


While at the nature center the kids made bird nests for their made up extinct birds. Gwyn named hers a Niledong....


When we got home we designed extinct bird eggs...


And then we drew our very own extinct birds. I love the names Gwyn comes up with. Her picture is on the left and is a Blue Hen Giggler....


Today we made some feather fossils in the kitchen using Plaster of Paris...


They are super easy to make here is how we did them.

Instructions:
1) Mix the Plaster of Paris per the directions on the box.
2) Pour the plaster into a container of your choosing. A plastic container, styrofoam cup or aluminum pan work well.
3) Decide what objects you will be using to make fossils of. Leaves, sticks, sea shells, feathers, etc.
4) Coat the side you are placing into the plaster with petroleum jelly to make them easier to remove.
5) Stick the items detailed side down into the plaster.
6) Let the plaster harden about 1/2 an hour and then pop your objects out. You should also be able to remove the plaster from the container as well.


I also found these two videos which my daughter loved because she is a HUGE Myth Busters fan. Mythbusters - Fascination with the Dodo Bird Part 1 and Part 2 with Adam Savage (there is a couple bad words).

And here is a FREE Dinosaur Lapbook from Homeschool Share!!!

What kinds of scientific fun have you been having?

Linking up with this week:
Educating LaytonsBen and Me, Slowly Natural, Upside Down Homeschooling, I Can Teach My Child, Adventures in MommydomA Little R & R, JDaniels4MomAdventurez In Child Rearing, The Momma Knows

6 comments:

Tracey M. said...

Kathy, awww my daughter will be disappointed. I asked her what she wanted me to blog about for the letter D this week. One of the topics was the Dodo. She learned about it during her Homeschool Legacy "Birds of a Feather" unit. I was thinking about writing another post this week. I am glad you did it because I am still trying to unpack from our move and I am currently working on blog cruise post for next week since I didn't get my "homeschooling an Only" post done in time. I lost a day somewhere and thought I had one more day to work on it. I will show her the Dodo videos after previewing them. Are they appropriate for a mature almost 5 year old? Great post!

Kathy Balman said...

Great minds think alike, lol. You can still blog about Dodos. The Dodo videos have a couple bad words...the myth buster guys always drop a few words even in their show. But my kids know what words are grown up words and they know not to repeat them.

JDaniel4's Mom said...

What a wonderful unit! I love the model fossil making. Thank you for linking this post to Read.Explore.Learn. I am going to post it on the the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook pages.

kathy balman said...

Thank you, we had so much fun making them.

steflayton said...

you are ALWAYS so much fun! We built a nest last year for Flying Creatures (Apologia) Thanks for linking up to Tactile Tuesday!!

ticiaM said...

Feather fossils is such a fun idea! I hadn't thought to do that.

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by! Please check the follow up box so you can receive my replies.

 
Designed By: Wacky Jacqui's Designs