After the success of  Studying Winter last month, I decided to pick 'Birds' as our theme for February. A little browse through our library's catalog let me know that I would certainly not be lacking for books on the subject, but my dilemna was knowing which books were good ones to use so I requested every juvenile book I could find (my poor librarian!) on birds for children along with several field guides to use for identifying the many birds we hope to attract to our yard.  I bought this fantastic guide a few months ago and can't wait to begin using the February suggestions for types of feed to put out and maybe even use their suggestion for a bird spa (a bird bath with a deicer in it). I again found many fantastic activity ideas in The Kids' Nature Book, as well as in The Little Hands Nature Book ,and I also used our Keepers of the Home/Contenders for the Faith Handbook's bird section to guide me in my planning. I also will be adding Sunday devotionals this month with this wonderful book.  So, besides doing lots of bird-watching, here is what else we will be learning and doing:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Watch Ask The Geese  and discuss Job 12:7-9. Read the chapter on Canadian Geese and Mordecai in Character Sketches Volume 1	Read Feb. section in For the Birds and  make several Bottle Bird Feeders, put them and our Suet Feeder out	Using More Fun with Nature look up berries that grow right around us that we can dry next summer and feed to the birds	Learn all about bird-watching, read the bird-watching section of Field Trips and look through this book to see the different types of equipment used	Discuss God's individuality in types of birds. Read Crinkleroot's 25 Birds Every Child Should Know  and Birds, see how many the kids know w/o looking at the name.	Learn more about bird identification. Read Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Birds. Make (using this fantastic guide)and begin keeping a bird journal to record the birds that come to our yard.	Read When Agnes Caws  and take a nature walk, listening for different birds.
Learn about Great Horned Owl and Amasa in Character Sketches Volume 1	Learn about migration. Read On the Wing: American Birds in Migration	Read A Year of Birds and discuss which birds winter in our area	Discuss God's individuality and design in Beaks	Read about Baby Birds and How They Grow	Examine a feather	Make  Birdseed Biscuit Valentines for the birds.
Read chapter on the Pied-Bill Grebe and Abinidab in Character Sketches Volume 1	Learn about our STATE BIRD	Help the birds Feather Their Nests with this project.	Read about Ornithology	Look through Birds' Eggs , discuss God's individuality in eggs.	Try our hand at learning some different bird calls.	Learn about the different types of nests birds make, try making our own to see what an amazing process it is. Go on a nest hunt.
Read chapter on the Crow and Saul in Character Sketches Volume 1	Read about Hunters in the Sky	Read poetry about birds from bird chapter in Favorite Poems Old and New: Selected For Boys and Girls	Read about Amazing Tropical Birds	Listen to Robin at Hickory Street	Read the Hawk chapter in Wild Babies, a Nature Sketchbook and go watch our local hawk down the road.	Learn about flight. Read Birds: Nature's Magnificent Flying Machines. Take a nature walk to observe bird flying.

 As I planned this month's daily nature studies I learned a few things that I thought might help you in your own planning:

-Keep it simple, when you plan too much it becomes more of a chore to get to it then a joy. As one of my favorite homeschool encouragers, Katherine Dang , says 'You don't have to teach a lot to teach a lot."

-I struggled with keeping it simple this month - there are a lot of great books and related activities on the topic of birds. I could truly do another full month of daily lessons and I probably will another time; so don't feel like you have to cover it all.

-Don't inundate your library with requests for all of their juvenile bird books in an attempt to find the very best books they have on the subject; they don't appreciate it .  It will not give them a favorable impression of homeschoolers.

-Using a Blank Monthly Calendar, fill in each day with what one aspect you want to cover that day and then look for an appropriate book or activity to go with it. This will help keep it simple. ,