The Red Robin Returns

Those baby robins sure look hungry!

Oh, there's Mommy, now!

I have a few more ROBIN things to share today. First, The Birth of a Bird, comes from the May 5, 1952 edition of LIFE Magazine:

You can download a pdf of it HERE for FREE!

 Next, I have complied several Robin - themed poems in a printable booklet. You can download this HERE for FREE! -- Instructions for assembling are on last page.

And this, from Homeschool Bits - a FREEBIE available HERE.It has a nice little printable booklet about ROBINS. Great for younger students.

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FLASHBACK from American Primary Teacher - 1902:

NATURE STUDY.

The Robin.

BY EDITH A. ROBERTSON, NEW YORK CITY.

 

Material. A picture of the robin, blackboard drawing. A robin's nest and eggs.

Introduction. Where have the birds been all winter? Have all the birds come back? What birds have come? What are the first to arrive? What do they tell us?

Development. Our American robin must not be confounded with the English robin redbreast, although both bear the same name. It is the latter bird in whose praise so much has been written. The  American robin belongs to the Thrush family.

Migration. The robin is one of the earliest heralds of spring, coming as early as March, and is one of the latest birds to leave in the autumn, many times remaining all winter. Robins migrate singly or in flocks.

Length—about ten inches.

Head—nearly all black.

Eye—round, brown with a white ring around it.

Bill—medium length; curved; strong and yellow.

Throat—streaked with black and white.

Breast—chestnut or rusty red. The breast is brightest in the spring.

Back—dark olive gray.

Wings—brown.

Tail—black, a little rounded; outer feathers edged with white.

Legs—slender; black.

Claws—black, slender for perching.

Have children notice whether the robin hops or runs.

The Nest. It is sometimes built in the corner of a porch, but oftener it is placed upon the horizontal limb of an orchard tree. It is so large and poorly concealed that any boy can find it, yet it is seldom molested.

The masonry of the nest is rough and the material coarse, being composed of moss, dead leaves, old grass, lined with hair, and cemented with mud.

The Eggs. The eggs number four to six, and are greenish blue in color, commonly spoken of as ''robin egg blue."

Food. The robin feeds for a month or two on' strawberries and cherries, but generally on worms and insects picked out of the ground.

Song. The robin is not one of our most charming songsters, yet its carol is sweet, hearty, and melodious. Its principal song is in the morning before sunrise, when it mounts the top of some tall tree, and with its wonderful power of song, announces the coming of day.

When trained, it imitates the sounds of various birds.

In early spring the robin may be heard at noon or in the afternoon; in summer, early in the mornings.

Robin is "the bird of the morning."

Habits. The robin is hardy, noisy, frolicsome, neighborly, and domestic in his habits; strong of wing and bold in spirit. The robin courts the" society of man, following close upon the plow and the spade, often becoming quite tame.

It destroys the larvae of many insects in the soil.

The Young. The young robins stay in the nest till about eleven days old. From early morning till nearly dark the parent birds keep up a constant search for worms. The worms are beaten up to a pulp by the parent birds before fed to the young. The old birds only leave their little ones to eat and bathe.

QUESTIONS FOR DRILL.

What bird comes back in April?

How long will the robin stay?

What is the color of robin's breast?

When is robin's breast the brightest?

What is the color of robin's back?

Does robin run or hop?

What does robin eat?

Where does he build his nest?

Of what is the nest made?

How many eggs in the nest?

What is the color of the eggs?

How long do the young robins stay in the nest?

Who feeds them?

READING LESSON FOR THE BLACKBOARD.

Here is Robin.

He has a pretty red breast.

Robin is very happy. He is singing in the apple tree.

Mr. and Mrs. Robin built the nest.

It is made of leaves, grass, hair, and mud.

The nest is big and strong.

It holds five little eggs.

By and by there will be five baby robins.

Mr. and Mrs. Robin will be busy.

They will feed the little ones.

They will teach them to fly.

Then the little ones will say good-bye and fly, fly, far away.

Poems—"Sir Robin," Lucy Larcom; "The Origin of the Robin," Whittier.

Story for Reproduction—“How the Robin Got His Red Breast." Cooke's Myths.

"Lincoln the Poet" and other Resources

LINCOLN THE POET

"As perfect a poem as ever was written" is Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Aside from its tremendous message, its vision and injunction upon the future, it possesses the rhythm, cadence, phonetic euphony and rhetorical symbolism of the great poem. One of the scholars of the country has written that speech as it would appear in the mechanical form of poetry. Without a change in word or punctuation, the speech, in form to emphasize the poetic qualities, appears as follows:

Four score and seven years ago
Our fathers brought forth on this continent
A new nation,
Conceived in liberty,
And dedicated to the proposition
That all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
Testing whether that nation,
Or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,
Can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field
As a final resting-place
For those who here have their lives
That that nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper
That we should do this.

But, in a larger sense,
We cannot dedicate --
We cannot consecrate --
We cannot hallou --
This ground.
The brave men, living and dead,
Who struggled here
Have consecrated it far above our poor power
To add or detract.
The world will little know
Nor long remember
What we say here,
But it can never forget
What they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather
To be dedicated here to the unfinished work
Which they who fought here have so nobly carried on.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated
To the great task remaining before us --
That from these honored dead
We take increased devotion to that cause
For which they gave the last full measure of devotion;
That we here highly resolve
That these dead shall not have died in vain;
That this nation, under God,
Shall have a new birth of freedom;
And that government of the people,
By the people, and for the people,
Shall not perish from the earth.

From the Oakland Tribune - Feb. 12, 1924

Abraham Lincoln biography (Great page for younger students.) - Garden of Praise

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Book on Google - Free to Read

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Geared toward younger students - every page has a colorful illustration (google link) This book would be a good one to print and staple together -- but you can read it online, too.

The Story of Abraham Lincoln - only 64 pages - not a lot of illustration, but good for elementary grade students - maybe 3rd grade and up, or read aloud. (google link) Here is a sample (humorous) passage:

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This on purports to be a book written in one-syllable words, obviously for the younger set. (google link) It is, sort of -- See for yourself:

See, any word with more than one syllable was broken up by hyphens into single syllables!

Last book, The Words of Abraham Lincoln for use in Schools. (google link) Here is the first part of the preface, explaining part of the book's purpose:

JUST ADDED: The Story of Abraham Lincoln - from the History Primer by Oscar Gerson

 Printable - FREE download - word doc

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Do you have any favorite Abraham Lincoln resources? If so, let us know in the comments.

Cloud in a Bottle

The little voyagers are learning about clouds as part of their DIY Meteorologist badge.

We tried a "cloud in a bottle" experiment to learn about cloud formation last week, but we weren't happy with the outcome:

Lighting a stick on fire to create smoke...

When the stick didn't work, we tried paper. 

Squeezing the bottle, then releasing to get smoke sucked down inside...

And a little bit of a cloud. We could actually see it better than it appears in this photo, 

but I was still a bit disappointed, and I think the little voyagers were, too.

If I can find some matches, we might try another version of this experiment.

In the meantime, how about some cloud poetry?

This first poem is a hint for our art project for today. 

Does it remind you of It Looked Like Spilt Milk?

This poem by William Wordsworth is short, but lovely.

 

This final cloud poem is by Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

Long, but nice!

Who Has Seen the Wind?

 NOTE: Click to Enlarge Poem

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What Robert Louis Stevenson said about this poem - from the University of Toronto:
 

"I had an extreme terror of Hell, implanted in me, I suppose, by my good nurse, which used to haunt me terribly on stormy nights, when the wind had broken loose and was going about the town like a bedlamite. I remember that the noises on such occasions always grouped themselves for me into the sound of a horseman, or rather a succession of horsemen, riding furiously past the bottom of the street and away up the hill into town; I think even now that I hear the terrible howl of his passage, and the clinking that I used to attribute to his bit and stirrups. On such nights I would lie awake and pray and cry, until I prayed and cried myself asleep" (Graham Balfour, Life of Robert Louis Stevenson)

Audio version of the poem - Listen at Reely's Audio Poems 

"WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND?"
 

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

The Wind's Work.

The busy wind we cannot see
At its work or play,
But it turns the weather vane
East and west this way.

The busy wind we cannot see
At its work or play,
But it blows the windmill's fans
Round and round this way.

The busy wind we cannot see
At its work or play,
But it lifts the kites on high
As we run this way.

The busy wind we cannot see
At its work or play,
But it blows the leaves about
To  and fro this way.

The busy wind we cannot see
At its work or play,
But it bends the forest trees
And they bow this way.

 

Title: A Year Book for Primary Grades: based on Froebel's mother plays
Authors: Etta Merrick Graves, Amelia Warfield Watkins, Rupert W. Graves
Publisher: M. Bradley company, 1908
Pages 159-160

NOTE: The Wind's Work - Daily Printing Practice - See below the jump (end of post)*****

Image from Ethnobotany wiki

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY

There's music in my heart all day,
I hear it late and early,
It comes from fields are far away,
The wind that shakes the barley.
Ochone!

Above the uplands drenched with dew,
The sky hangs soft and pearly,
An emerald world is listening to
The wind that shakes the barley.
Ochone!

Above the bluest mountain crest
The lark is singing rarely,
It rocks the singer into rest,
The wind that shakes the barley.
Ochone!

Oh, still through summers and through springs
It calls me late and early.
Come home, come home, come home, it sings,
The wind that shakes the barley.
Ochone!

Title: The Wind in the Trees: A Book of Country Verse
Author: Katharine Tynan
Publisher: Grant Richards, 1898
Pages 57-58

 

THE WIND

The wind, the wind,
The mourning wind!
It comes and grieves
About my eaves
It knocks and groans
It cries and moans,
And the chilly moon
Rides aloft at noon
In the mourning, mourning wind.

The wind, the wind,
The raining wind!
Thro' dripping sprays
And grass-wet ways
It winds and lifts
It weaves and shifts,
And I walk apart
Where the storm-rills start
In the raining, raining wind.

The wind, the wind,
The summer wind I
In idle ease
Thro' weeds and trees
It wafts and woos
It soothes and sues,
And I fall asleep
Where the grass is deep
In the summer, summer wind.

The wind, the wind,
The thieving wind!
It whisks and starts
It scuds and darts
It whips the vanes
It shakes the panes,
And the apples fall
Where the weeds are tall
In the thieving, thieving wind.

The wind, the wind,
The winter wind!
It sweeps and soars
It howls and roars
It drives the snow
It piles the floe,
And the drifting sky
Runs gainless and dry
In the winter, winter wind.

The wind, the wind,
The midnight wind!
When night hours wane
And star-hosts reign
In monotone
It moves alone,
And nobody knows
Where the dead world blows
In the midnight, midnight wind.

Title: Wind and Weather
Author: Liberty Hyde Bailey
Publisher: Comstock Publishing Co., 1919
Pages 17-19

NOTE: The Wind - Vocabulary Work - See below the jump (end of post) *****

THE PIPER ON THE HILL
A Child's Song

There sits a piper on the hill
Who pipes the livelong day,
And when he pipes both loud and shrill
The frightened people say:
"The wind, the wind is blowing up
'Tis rising to a gale."
The women hurry to the shore
To watch some distant sail.
The wind, the wind, the wind, the wind,
Is blowing to a gale.

But when he pipes all sweet and low,
The piper on the hill,
I hear the merry women go
With laughter, loud and shrill:
"The wind, the wind is coming south
'Twill blow a gentle day."
They gather on the meadow-land
To toss the yellow hay.
The wind, the wind, the wind, the wind,
Is blowing south to-day.

And in the morn, when winter comes,
To keep the piper warm,
The little Angels shake their wings
To make a feather storm:
"The snow, the snow has come at last!
The happy children call,
And "ring around" they dance in glee,
And watch the snowflakes fall.
The wind, the wind, the wind, the wind,
Has spread a snowy pall.

But when at night the piper plays,
I have not any fear,
Because God's windows open wide
The pretty tune to hear;
The Wind and the Moon
And when each crowding spirit looks,
From its star window-pane,
A watching mother may behold
Her little child again.
The wind, the wind, the wind, the wind,
May blow her home again.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Image from The Baldwin Project

THE WIND AND THE MOON

Said the Wind to the Moon, "I will blow you out
You stare
In the air
Like a ghost in a chair,
Always looking what I am about—
I hate to be watched; I'll blow you out."

The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon.
So, deep
On a heap
Of clouds to sleep,
Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon,
Muttering low, "I've done for that Moon."

He turned in his bed; she was there again!
On high
In the sky,
With her one ghost eye,
The Moon shone white and alive and plain.
Said the Wind, "I will blow you out again."

The Wind blew hard, and the Moon grew dim.
"With my sledge,
And my wedge,
I have knocked off her edge!
If only I blow right fierce and grim,
The creature will soon be dimmer than dim."

He blew and he blew, and she thinned to a thread.
"One puff
More's enough
To blow her to snuff!
One good puff more where the last was bred,
And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go the thread."

He blew a great blast, and the thread was gone.
In the air
Nowhere
Was a moonbeam bare;
Far off and harmless the shy stars shone—
Sure and certain the Moon was gone!

The Wind he took to his revels once more;
On down.
In town,
Like a merry-mad clown,
He leaped and halloed with whistle and roar—
"What's that?" The glimmering thread once more!

He flew in a rage—he danced and blew;
But in vain
Was the pain
Of his bursting brain;
For still the broader the Moon-scrap grew,
The broader he swelled his big cheeks and blew.

Slowly she grew—till she filled the night,
And shone
On her throne
In the sky alone,
A matchless, wonderful silvery light,
Radiant and lovely, the queen of the night.

Said the Wind: "What a marvel of power am I!
With my breath,
Good faith!
I blew her to death"—
First blew her away right out of the sky—
Then blew her in; what strength have I!"

by George MacDonald
 
Title: The Home Book of Verse, American and English, 1580-1918, Volume 1
Compiled by: Burton Egbert Stevenson
Edition: 3
Publisher: H. Holt, 1918

(Google book link)

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CLASSIC LITERATURE

Title: The Wind in the Willows
Author: Kenneth Grahame
Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915
(Google book Link)

Title: Old Mother West Wind
Author: Thornton Waldo Burgess
Publisher: Little, Brown, 1913
(Google book Link)

Title: Mother West Wind's Animal Friends
Author: Thornton Waldo Burgess
Publisher: Little, Brown, 1912

(Google book Link)

 

Daily Printing Practice and Vocabulary Work -- Below the Jump