We read Keith Baker's simple, but fun Little Green, today. It's probably more suited to the toddler, than preschool crowd, but C enjoyed the short, collage illustrated story, of a little boy following the darting path of a hummingbird outside his window, and reproducing its path on paper, with bright, sweeping strokes of paint. C was inspired to reproduce the hummingbird's path on her Magna-Doodle. I was reminded of a pom-pom craft I'd seen at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman, that was a perfect go along. I let the younger children each pick a couple of 1 inch pom-poms, to glue together (smaller than the original craft called for, but we used up all our jumbo pom-poms for our nesting birds). And, I broke toothpicks in half... ...for them to color black... ...and glue, as a beak into the front of their birds' heads. Then, they glued on eyes... ...and cut mini-muffin cups in half, and half again, to make quarters, for the wings, then cutting one of the left over quarters in half again, to make an eighth for the tail. Don't you love crafts, that incorporate math? After our craft, we made a quick trip to the library, and picked up a few additional books: Noriko and Don Carroll's beautifully photographed First Flight, A Mother Hummingbird's Story... ...which we discovered has been made into a movie, we're now anxious to see. Click here, to view the trailer. We also picked up the Stokes Hummingbird Book, so we can learn how to attract hummingbirds to our own yard, once they start arriving in force, this summer. While we were at the library, I picked up a couple of holds, that had arrived in, as well: Birds In Their Homes by Addison Webb - an artfully illustrated (by Sabra Mallett Kimball), look at the nests, and nesting habits of fifty-four birds of the "city, country, and garden", making it a perfect follow-up book to our nest spotting drive, from last weekend. And, an audio version of Mark Obmascik's The Big Year, a Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, which I had hoped we could listen to as a family, but after previewing the first few chapters, realized there is a bit too much "adult" language, for the children's ears. But, I think the humorous account of the continent wide, year long, contest for serious birders, ought to prove interesting for the Man of the House, and I. For more book reviews, and recommendations for children, be sure to check out this week's "What My Child is Reading" link-up, over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. It's great to be a homeschooler.
