MRS. VINA SHERWOOD-ADAMS by MRS. VINA SHERWOOD-ADAMS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 17, 1915

MRS. VINA SHERWOOD-ADAMS

By MRS. VINA SHERWOOD-ADAMS

Bird Studies With Our Children — No. 1

MRS. VINA SHERWOOD-ADAMS

DURING the warm months we can more easily reach the ideal nature study; for instead of depending on pictures and stories to form the child’s concept of animals, birds, flowers, trees, etc., we may have the real objects before him. Flowers are an interesting study, but birds are even more so, with their incessant activity and bewitching manners. The construction of the nests alone, in which each kind of bird exhibits its own taste, is an interesting study, but is best undertaken when the trees are bare of leaves. Many lessons on thrift, neatness, etc., may be learned from the manner in which different birds construct their homes. The quarrelsome bluejay shows his rude nature in the hastily made nest of ugly black twigs; while the dear little

goldfinch, a gentle, refined little fellow, constructs a nest so light, so dainty (often decorating it with wood moss from the tree bark), that it can rest on the leaf branches of the thistle plant.

It does not call for much effort to teach our children about the birds. While on the way to market one early spring day, with our two-year-old boy and his sister, we saw our first bird arrival—a robin. Sister spied him first. Looking up to the tree, we said, “Listen!” Baby was all attention. He heard the robin’s clear call, and said, “Bird.” We told him it was “robin bird.” He repeated the name after us a few times. By trying to imitate the older children in the use of their crayola, he had learned to distinguish the colors blue and red; so we told him robin’s breast was red, somewhat like the red sweater suit he was wearing. Then we listened to robin’s call a few minutes, calling baby’s attention to its sweetness. Now when he hears that call, he says, “robin bird,” and, putting his hands on his red sweater, “like me.”

Baby can tell the whistle of the train from that of the street car. Why not teach him the call of a few of the birds? We made robin his bird of special study this spring. He watched robin hopping about in the yard, his head on one side, as he listened for the tiny stirrings of a worm in the ground. He watched him gathering materials for his nest, and later he had a peep at the hungry baby birds with their wide-open mouths. Very simple little lessons, but in them he learned to think of robin bird as his friend, and to keep sensitive little ear nerves alert for the small sounds of nature.

Battle Creek, Mich.