Bird Songs

Using the audio files from eNature.com at http://enature.com/audio/audio_home.asp our class studied a variety of bird calls. Each child wanted to know the call their researched bird made, and as they became expert on recognizing that call, they were motivated to learn the calls of other birds as well.

My favorite story was when one of my students came in the next day, after we had studied the robin's Cheerio, Cheer-Up, Cheerio  call, and said. "I was laying in bed and I heard the robin sing. I didn't know that, and now I do. It was the robin who had been singing to me every morning. Now I have to go and try to see it."

The children had four tasks with each bird call. The first was to represent the audio by a verbal hint, like for the robin, it's the cheerio, cheer-up, cheerio. The children were very inventive and creative in generating a good word hook to help them remember. Secondly, they had to mark, in the air, whether the call was high or low pitched, moving their hand as the call varied in melody. They then recorded that up and down line on their paper. Thirdly, they had to mark with a stroke for each break in the call, like our words in sentences, so they could see that some calls were one long note, while others were short quick calls. Finally, they had to try and reproduce the call themselves. Some would sing, hum and others ventured whistling.

Parents commented to me over the next few weeks just how much their children had learned, and were now teaching them.