Worms and birds have been a key focus with the toddlers at RisingOaks Early Learning | John Sweeney. This interest developed very organically with the toddlers finding worms outside, after one rainy day and asking questions about them. “where do they go” and “why worms”. We followed their lead, talking about worms and their benefits to help plants grow and worms provide food for the birds. We collected some worms and dirt in a clear jar to watch the worms dig through the dirt and create tunnels.
Once the toddlers were engaged in learning about worms we added some scrap paper, paper nests, plastic Easter eggs and birds to the sensory table. The desire to build the perfect bird's nest soon spread throughout the classroom. The toddlers filled their nests with scrap paper, packing it down so it was nice and full. “Eggs!” Macarius shouted and added multiple to his nest. The birds were then placed on top of the eggs. They need to keep the eggs warm so they will hatch. This brought us to read a story about baby birds. We saw pictures of baby birds and how small they were. The toddlers observed the different coloured eggs from different birds. The children have learned a lot about birds in the classroom, we have learned some of the names of different birds and looked at pictures of different birds from around the world and how they all come in bright and unique colours and patterns.
We wrapped up this inquiry with some bird matching. The toddlers used their colour recognition abilities to correctly label the colours on the birds in order to categorize them. Birds and worms have captured the attention of the toddlers and they still enjoy looking for the worms on rainy days or pointing out birds flying in the sky or the ones that have landed in the trees. This curiosity about our world is clearly thriving in the toddler room! We have since been back to visiting the birds by placing a bird feeder on our window with some bird seed, in hopes that we will be able to see some birds up close.
