Exploring more or less in a bird nest

Today we read the wonderful book called “More” by I. C. Springman and Brian Lies. This book is about a bird who keeps adding more things to the nest until the nest gets too heavy and the branch holding the nest starts to break. This book is filled with beautiful illustrations and simple words such as “more, less, fewer” and so on…

From exploring birds and nests to a wide range of math concepts, the possible ways to extend this book into other parts of the classroom content is just endless. I just love a book like this!

After reading the book, we talked about things you might find in a real bird’s nest by taking a close look at the parts of a bird nest in a nature bottle, which I shared with you in a previous post…

As we passed around our parts of a bird nest nature bottles, we wondered if the items inside each bottle could be found in a real bird’s nest. You can read more about how we made our “parts of a bird nest nature bottles” by clicking here

And then we played a simple game of “more or less” using some of our math tokens the children had brought in to share earlier that day. We started off with a simple paper plate bird nest and then the children would tell me to add more or less to the nest…

Each time the children would shout “more” – my little bird friend and I would add something else to the nest and if the children shouted “less” – I would remove something from the nest…

We kept adding more or less to our nest until the children shouted, “enough!”

And then each child went off to create their own paper plate bird nest where they could add more or less of their own items until they felt like their bird nests had “enough”…

We used a lot of glue on these paper plate bird nests to hold all the math tokens in place. Once the nests dry, we will review our  book again and compare our paper plate nests and review the simple concepts shared in this book by looking for which nests have more or less or fewer or too many and so on…

And we will also use them to play a simple bird nest eye spy game…

As I mentioned before, a book like this can lead to endless types of learning and activities throughout the classroom…

Update:

We played our Eye Spy game and the children loved finding things on their own nests…

Available on Amazon

This book was just published in March of 2012!

Available on Amazon

Deborah J Stewart

Deborah J Stewart

Every time I think I know everything I need to know about teaching young children, God says, "Hold on a minute!" and gives me a new challenge.

Let me tell ya...

With each new challenge that you overcome, you will find yourself better equipped and more passionate about teaching young children.

God didn't call wimps to lead, teach, or care for His children. Nope, he has high expectations, so get ready. You will have to give your very best but after teaching for over 30 years, I can tell you that it is a wonderful and rewarding journey.

Whenever your calling feels hard, just remember, 'He who began a good work in you (and in the children you serve) will be faithful to complete it.'

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