As most of you are aware, we are in chicken mode right now with Gage’s business (Deluxe Clucks) starting and the brooder webcam up and running (see right sidebar and click play to watch).  We have been contacted by some local homeschoolers to come out for field trips, so we are in the process of getting ready for them to start.  As part of the homeschool field trips, I’m creating various works to help teach them more about chickens.  This lesson is about parts of a feather and it is one of a series of posts on basic Chicken Anatomy. Be sure to visit the other posts too!  You can find them here:  Hands On Chicken Anatomy Lessons and Bird’s Nest study.  

Feathers are pretty amazing!  They are extremely strong, yet lightweight.  There are actually five basic types of feathers:  

• Contour
• Down
• Semiplumes
• Filoplumes
• Bristles

This would be a great time to go on a nature scavenger hunt to find some feathers.  Grab a magnifying glass or a microscope to study your feathers more closely!  If you do not have access to feathers or a microscope, here are some pictures and another set is here for you to be able to see them up close.  For the Parts of a Feather study, I drew a contour feather.  I will be creating a work about the various types of feathers. Here is a set of nomenclature cards I drew and made for parts of a feather.

Most feathers have a couple of feathers in common:  

• Most feathers have a thick hard pole down the center of the feather.  This is called the Shaft.  It is made of Keratin (the same material our fingernails are made of).  Birds cannot feel the shaft, therefore it does not hurt the bird to clip their wings.  
• The Quill is where the feather attaches to the Bird.  Quills were used to write with long ago.  It was dipped into ink and the ink would go up the shaft a little way.  
• The soft part of the feather is called the vane.  If you can look at this part through a microscope or magnifying glass, you will see that it has tiny hairs called barbs.  Those hairs also have tiny hairs called barbules.  They function like a hook and latch… making the wing vanes act like a zipper.  
• Some feathers are fuzzy, these are called Down Feathers.  This  is where the barbs do not have barbules so they cannot hook (or zip) together.  Down feathers do not have a shaft.  Every bird has down feathers under it’s contour feathers.  

All birds molt.  It is where the bird loses its old feathers and grows new ones.  Why do birds molt?  Simply, because their feathers get old and beat up.  Most birds molt gradually losing a few feathers at a time.  There are a few birds that lose their feathers all at once.  Doesn’t that sounds like a great research project to figure out which ones do this?!?  

If you don’t know where to begin to teach zoology to your students, we used Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Zoology, Flying Creatures Book. For more information about how I take traditional curriculum and make them more hands-on and Montessori-ish, look here under the Zoology and Botany tags.   

I’ll be covering more basic anatomy information about chickens (and birds in general, like this lesson), so stay tuned!  

As most of you know, we are in full out chicken mode right now with Gage’s business assets arriving (chicks) and with the webcam up and running (see link in the right hand column, click play), I thought this would be a perfect time to start an in-depth, hands-on study about chickens!  I will even attempt to answer the proverbial question, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”.  Read to the bottom for that one 🙂  In the meantime, let’s get to some hands-on chicken anatomy lessons!

The first thing that I teach about chickens is the vocabulary.  Most areas of study or professions have a certain vocabulary that is associated with that particular topic.  Chickens are no exception.  Some of the vocabulary will be very familiar, but some won’t be.  I try to use the correct vocabulary for all the works in a particular area, so this is the first document to present to your students.  I call it the Chicken Family Tree because so much of it surrounds the names of the chickens at different stages of their life.

The next area I typically teach is the anatomy of a chicken.  Montessori Print Shop has a beautiful set you can purchase.  If you are not in a position to purchase them, here is another set of chicken anatomy that I found this is free.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I got these, if you know who to give credit to, please let me know!  

I know some people consider nomenclature (3 Part) cards to be just for young students, but I use them with my older boys all the time.  If you are a visual learner (I am and two of my boys are), we like to see it… so we continue to use nomenclature cards even though they are 9, 11, and 13  (and I’m 47) now.  It’s all about following the child to teach them the way they learn the best!  Anatomy is the same across breeds but not across gender.  So any set of chicken anatomy cards needs to distinguish if they are defining anatomy of a hen or a rooster.  Here is a great chart of the differences between hens and roosters.  

Did you know chickens can’t sweat? Since they do not sweat, they lose a primary way to cool their body down.  Instead, chickens have combs and wattles to help them regulate their body temperature. But not all combs and wattles are created the same. I have created a Chicken Anatomy Combs work to show the reason for the differences and variations.  The comb variations are usually based on breed and gender.  The comb is not just a means to cool off, it is also used to attract a mate.  In addition, when a young female chicken (called a pullet) is ready to start laying eggs, her comb will turn from pink to red.  

Since we are now discussing various chicken breeds, there is a great chart here to help your children see all the variations in each breed.

Now, back to the question about the chicken and the egg and which came first… if you believe in the Bible, it answers this question for us.  

Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Since I’m pretty sure there were not any eggs walking around, it would mean the chicken came first 🙂

I have so much more to cover regarding chickens, but this is a good place to stop for this study.  I’ll be posting much more on chickens since it appears we will be spending much of our time with our new chicks.  We recently received a request to host some homeschool field trip days, so we will be creating lots of works to teach our guests when these field trips start.  

Until next time….

Are you in the process of planning your beach vacation?  If you are, be sure to not leave your homeschool at home.  Studying with the ocean as your backdrop can bring in almost any subject you can imagine.  And, if you don’t live in an area where saltwater creatures are geographically close, you don’t want to miss this opportunity to teach it while you are on location!  Since we homeschool, we are not limited to vacations when our children are “out of school”.  We get to be creative about the “out of school” and vacation timing which allows us to make the most of the discounts available for the off seasons.  So you might consider a longer stay to get even more homeschooling in!  We spent a month on the coast of North Carolina in August and we learned so much about zoology and saltwater life that we could only learn there at the beach!  We did get run off the beach due to two hurricanes, but the absolute best homeschooling occurred right after the storms.  The storms brought in fabulous sealife, amazing shells and treasures from the depths!  So don’t be afraid to go in the late summer months!  Because there are just so many great opportunities and activities to teach at the beach, I have decided to break this topic into several posts .  So, part one will be about some lessons you might want to teach leading up to your beach vacation.  

If you have been following our blog, you already know that we take traditional curriculum and make them more hands-on and tactile learning materials.  With Apologia Swimming Creatures it is already a hands-on learning text, but we have added even more experiments and activities to help make your beach vacation a great experience homeschooling on the beach!  (Note we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program.  Any money received via this relationship is used for our homeschool!  PS. I’ve made a grand total of $0.00 from affiliate marketing… but the FTC says I have to tell you that IF you buy it, I will make 4% of the sale as commission.)

Geography is one of those subjects that I like to teach before we leave.  I will assume you are heading to an ocean, if you are reading this article, so the first thing we want to cover is the oceans of the world!  

Etc. Montessori has a beautiful free set of hands-on materials to cover World Oceans.  Click here to download them from their site.  

Another great way to teach geography is to map out the trip.  This is another project you can do before you leave.  I love building up the anticipation of going on vacation.  Believe it or not, Martha Stewart really adds a bit of an artistic flair to this one.  I LOVE this idea and will be doing this myself!  

Another subject to teach before you go to the beach is about tides.  What causes the tides?  Here is a great print out from TeacherVision (if you are not using the Apologia Swimming Creatures textbook).  There is a great experiment on ehow to demonstrate how the gravitational pull creates the tides by using a magnet and metal shavings.  However, I can’t find a single picture of the experiment online.  So, I guess we’ll do it and post the pictures 🙂  When I do, I’ll add the link here.  

If you have not started studying Zoology yet, this would be a great time to introduce  animal classification, since so many ocean creatures are invertebrates (do not have backbones).  Montessori Materials has some free classification works here.  Matri Learning has a chart here.  The Helpful Garden has over 20 free sets of Zoology Materials to download including classification and sorting cards.  The Homeschool Den created some invertebrate cards and lots of other ocean activities! If you are in a position to purchase a beautiful set, Montessori for Everyone has wonderful nomenclature cards that are quite affordable.  

Here is a short “homeschooling on the beach” packing list.  If I have left anything off, please leave me a comment so I can add it! 

• Nature Notebook to sketch / draw and journal in
• Sketch Pencils
• Magnifying Lens  
• Binoculars
• Camera (like we would go on vacation without one … )
• Plastic Bags, Totes, Buckets, Bottles to take home some beach samples (sand, saltwater, shells, etc.)
  
• Ocean Field Guide (can be borrowed from the library) 
• Plain paper or a notebook and pencil
• Ruler

Part two will be the various studies to do once you are at the beach!  I will add a link here once it is posted.    

Until next time… 

Apologia Flying Creatures – Bird Nest Study

This is another example of taking a traditional homeschool curriculum and supplementing with hands-on tactile materials to make it feel more Montessori. In Lesson 5 of Apologia’s Flying Creatures we studied Bird Nests.  Did you know birds only sleep in nests when they are incubating eggs and when their babies are young.  So, their nests are not their homes.  For most birds in North America, the nesting season starts in March and ends by the end of August.  Birds instinctively know, when the days are getting warmer and longer, that it is time to construct nests.   (Note we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program.  Any money received via this relationship is used for our homeschool!  PS. I’ve made a grand total of $0.00 from affiliate marketing… but the FTC says I have to tell you that IF you buy it, I will make 4% of the sale as commission.)

Nests are made with a variety of materials from the typical straw, hay, and leaves to yarn, string, and dryer lint.  Most birds like to fill the nest where the eggs and babies will be with soft materials.  Hummingbirds will even pull lichen off trees to soften their nests.  Nests are built by the female bird typically, with some assistance from the male.  

For our homeschool, I made Zoology Lesson 5 Nesting 3 part nomenclature cards that include all the different types of nests covered:

• Bower Nests
• Weaver Nests
• No Nests
• Ground Nests
• Mound Nests
• Earth-Hole Nests
• Cavity Nests
• Platform Nests
• Cup Nests
• Adherent Nests

The “Try This” for Lesson 5 is making nests.  I can tell you from experience, they are MUCH harder to make than you might think and certainly can make a huge mess!  

Materials You Might Use to Try to Build Various Nests:

• Grass
• Twigs
• Leaves
• Straw
• Mud
• String
• Cotton
• Dryer Lint
• Fishing Line

Directions:  

Now take the materials and try to build the various nests in the nomenclature cards.  Some are easier than others.  Here are some of our finished nests:

A Bower Nest:

A Cup Nest (and a platform in the background):  

And the mess we made 🙂

Let me know if you do make any nests and use the nomenclature cards. Leave a comment below with a link to your blog so we can see!  

Until Next Time…..