Ran out of things to do in Mérida this week, so I took the initiative to plan my own kid birding class for the coming week. I'm now off to El Cuyo, that first little village on the north coast, to give a 4.5 day class to 6 kids between the ages of 6-9 with very little birding experience. Here's what the general plan looks like:
Day 1
-Thoughts and opinions about birds
-Birding ethics, what to do and not to do
-How to use binoculars
-Prepare and decorate field notebooks
-List all the birds they already know
-Pick which kind of bird the kids will act as for the week
Day 2
-Go birding!
-Review the birds we saw
-Parts of birds
-Some basic groups of birds
-How to use a field guide
-15 common species
-Important things to look at for identification
-5 common songs
-Short birding walk to look at the things we talked about
-Draw a bird in the field
Day 3
-Go birding!
-Learn and play games about habitat
-Learn and play games about breeding
Day 4
-Go birding!
-Learn and play game about Miration
-Plan our surprise project (more to come...)
Day 4.5
-Work on project.
You'd better take some videos of the kids acting like birds! Sounds like a fun 4 days. 6-9 years old is the perfect age for this--the kids will never forget their time with you!
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