A few more birds

Gabby has been doing a beautiful job on her bird journal. The bird above is a male house sparrow. It is maybe a bit too yellow, but she's just learning how to mix colors for the first time. The other details are great. Here are a few more examples:

Another chickadee, Gabby loves these. A male and female (we suppose) hang out together by our pinecone feeders quite often.
We saw a red winged blackbird for the first time, not at our feeders, but during an early morning run last Saturday. Its red stripe stood out as it perched on the very top of a tree. A nice reward for exercising.

It looked like a male and female cardinal were building a nest in the pine tree by our window, but we think they abandoned the site. We still see them flying around and snacking though. Gabby hasn't painted the female yet.

A junco. A sweet-looking bird, despite its "trashy" name. Gabby worked hard on the wing here.

Gab's first international fair

Friday was Gabby's first international fair. She'd been preparing for weeks on her country, Australia. She borrowed several books from the library and I've been having her read books by Australian authors for Language Arts studies. She did a lot of research on the web as well.

The fair was at Calvary Bible Fellowship Church in Coopersburg and was almost an all day thing. Set-up began at 1pm and we ended with a potluck from 6-7pm.

I was proud of Gabby for taking responsibility for her presentation. Most of the countries were shared by families -- and that was great -- but I wanted her to work independently. She did the research. She typed it all up. She created all her own handouts. She arranged her presentation board and set it up when the got there. And she wrote her talk. She had to give it 3 times for about 20 people each time. BIG accomplishment for a my shy little girl!

I did her cooking for her, but that wasn't really part of the fair anyway. The "international" part of the potluck was optional. Some families just brought casseroles. I thought it would be fun to bring Australian dishes. Turns out, though, Australians don't eat very differently than us. So I made a beef soup. Many years ago it would have been made from kangaroo tail, but it is illegal to kill kangaroos now. I also made ANZAC buscuits, a traditional cookie. Those turned out really good. Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup plain flour
1 cup sugar
125g (4oz) butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup (I used maple)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 300F (150C)

Mix oats, flour, sugar and coconut together.
Melt syrup and butter together.
Mix soda with boiling water and add to melted butter and syrup.
Add to dry ingredients.
Place 1 tablespoonfuls of mixture on greased tray (allow room for spreading).
Bake for 20 minutes.
Loosen while warm, cool on trays.
(makes about 35)

Gabby found the recipe here.

I pulled Bri out of school to come with us, so the whole family got to come, minus Max who had to work. Each kid got a passport that was stamped at each "country." Gabby wanted a stamp that represented Australia in some way, but we couldn't find one at the local craft stores. So, I made one. Yes, I really did! It was so fun. And simple too. All you really need is a rubber eraser, a pencil, and an exacto knife. I think I'm going to make more, perhaps for an arts unit with Bri and Gabby. Here's my stamp:
And the website that taught me how to do it.

Here are a few pics of the event:

Her table with Fielding (This is where he was still excited about the event. Not too many countries later, he was less enthusiastic.)
The flag shown here is the Aboriginal flag
You can see the didgeridoo that Gabby made from a wrapping paper roll sticking out on the right and the cookies are on the left.
Gabby's big show!!!

The birds!

a few pinecone feeders and a recycled peanuts container bird feeder out our (foggy) window

We are doing Project Feeder Watch. We just started -- with hardly a month left in the season. Kind of lame, I know, but we're trying.

I had heard about Project Feeder Watch (PFW), but didn't think too much about doing it as part of our science curriculum this year. In the fall, however, someone from the homeschool group shared a pdf workbook that PFW makes available to homeschoolers. There were a lot of great ideas in it. I thought it would be a cool addition to our schoolwork.

We'd only just moved into our new house, and we were so new at homeschooling, and there was Thanksgiving, then Christmas... I didn't get around to signing us up until January. (There is always something getting in the way of my good plans!) The online information said there might be a delay in getting our materials to us. There was, about a month, maybe a little more.

It's okay, though, the nice PFW people are applying our fee to next year's program. (It was only 15 bucks, anyway.) We are getting a feel for the whole thing in this last month. It's great. Like a practice run. We'll be pros come November when it starts all over again.

Gabby, Fielding and I made some feeders and hung them on a few trees outside. We've got binoculars by the window and our bird chart on the wall. Gabby and I get so excited when we identify a bird.

Gabby has an additional project, along with watching, counting and reporting birds. I had her read about John James Audubon and begin a bird journal. I bought her a sketchbook and water colors. This week she painted a black-capped chickadee. We've done very little art this year so I hope this makes up for it a little bit. She seemed to enjoy herself and I was so impressed with the result. Maybe this will be a life-long hobby for her!