April 18, 2004
Animals use homes for the same reasons we do: protection, food storage, and a place to raise their families. In Burrows, Barns, and Our Backyard, students learned about how animals make homes above, on, and below the ground and how humans make homes for their pets.
Two of the students’ favorite activities were digging in the dirt and creating their own version of a bower. In the digging activity, the kids worked hard to remove as much dirt as possible from a plastic container in one minute using forks as long, sharp claws. For the bower craft, they learned about male satin bower birds. These birds create a lovely display space (bower) for their mating dance and song using objects of all kinds…almost all of which are blue in color. The students created their own bowers using a wide variety of blue pieces: feathers, beads, ribbons, paint, flowers, sticks, and paper.
