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Hi Everyone,
It has been almost the end of October 2013. We have got some field trips in this month which were not planned at all. Our last field trip was to do bird watching. This activity was not planned at all. A friend of mine invited us to participate in dragonfly study with some nature lover club. Unfortunately, the guide wasn't available unexpectedly. We were so disappointed as kids had been very excited with dragonflies. We almost cancel this nature walk activity. Thanks God that we have a substitute for a birdwatching activity guided by some Biology Faculty students from Surabaya Technology Institute.
It took place on the same plantation when we did our Artificial Vegetative Plant Reproduction Methods observation, so we still can have a chat with the previous planting guide about how great the plants that we planted with him have grown up well.
Before kids started birdwatching, they were separated into groups, let say under 10 years old and older than it. Ken and Tom belonged to the second group. Jim didn't go as he had some drawing lessons. There were 4 instructors. Kids were introduced into some basic parts of the bird body.
Kids are listening to the instructors explaining the basic parts of birds' body.
They had some discussions about some kinds of birds using some pictures. I didn't go through the discussion for honest as I had my own discussion with some other educators around them. However, I had a time to steal a glance at my sons' faces which showed great seriousness toward the topic. I love to see how the kids who has just met once could be getting familiar each other easily.
The instructors are going around for discussion.
I was so surprised that kids had a chance to handle pairs of binoculars while they were going around the plantation. I thought there won't be any bird as the place is “just plantation”. Well, I was wrong. When we see up there in the trees, there were some bird nests. The instructor get all participants to listen and pay attention to the various sounds around. I was just aware that among those noise, we could hear the nature sounds. There were some birds' sound chirping around.
The instructor informed us what a birdwatching competition is. In a birdwatching competition, participants need to get a flying bird snap in their binoculars, follow the birds, make sketches, and do some classification before presenting their birds profile. My inquiry about the expensive and sophisticated binoculars was answered. I wondered where the instructors got the binoculars from. They were the expensive Nikon ones. Those were the winning prize from bird watching competition. Voila…
Kids are watching birds with binoculars lent by the instructor. They learnt how to get the lenses focus too.
When the bird watching finished, kids had their own session.They had new friends and they played together with the pick up car. Even Ken learnt how to use hoe.
After Session activity with the car.
We have some things from the activity:
- Kids were trained with the sensitivity towards nature's action, like the sounds and sight of birds
- We had new friends and connections to get more activities with the nature
- Kids learnt handling binoculars and discuss things with others. They show off things in their mind they got from previous reading.
We really wish to have more nature walk activities. They really get us closer to the nature, the creation of God where we come from and where we are going to be in the future. We are parts of the nature so we have to be close with nature. Thank you God for your grace toward us.
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Adelien Tan is a mother of three awesome boys and a wife of a great husband. They are a home education family who live in Surabaya, Indonesia, where home education is still very rare. English is her foreign language, but She tries to use it in blogging.
I love bird watching! I haven’t done it formally but I always have my eye on them. I did an Audubon Christmas Bird Count one year in Florida and it was just a blast. I want to take my son on one, shoot, maybe this year! Thanks for the idea!
Wow great. I wish we had such kind of event here. Kids start loving it.
I love bird watching! I love birds! My parents have an amazing garden in their back yard and they get tons of different kinds of birds back there. It is so peaceful!
Wonderful. It is very hard for us to get natural places where we can see a lot of birds, trees, flowers. All around us are buildings, vehicles, and dust.
You have the most wonderful opportunities available to you. I know my kids would love to do the things your kids do.
I think we have too many similarities. LOL
That is a great activity! I love reading about all that your children are learning!
Oh thanks a lot Bonnie. What a compliment for me it is. Feel honoured.
Bird watching sounds like so much fun. I watched the documentary on Netflix called Birders about watching birds in New York’s Central Park. It sounds like you had a nice time. Thank you for sharing.
Great to be able to watch bird in the middle of a very busy town.
I love nature field trips of any sort. We are indoors too much! The Charlotte Mason theory, from hearsay, has the kids get outside everyday. At least for a little while even if the weather is bad.
I love CM method and now we are approaching to the method in science.
I’m glad you guys had a fun time! Myself, I am terrified of any kind of birds, so it’s a good thing I wasn’t with you, ha!
Watching bird is fine for me, but don’t ask me to touch any animal.
I have never been bird watching before. What a neat experience!
It is also the first time for me.