Amani Beydoun

Title: Bird Beaks

Length of Lesson: 60 minutes

Groups Size: 3 -4

Grade: Pre-Kindergarten

Source:

My observation of students playing with animals

Curriculum Area:

Science, problem solving, social, predication

Rationale:

Students have been very interested in animals. They carry around their favorite animal and build
homes for them using blocks. I thought it would be interesting to explore different bird beaks.

Objectives:

1. To explore different birds by looking at/observing pictures of different birds.

2. To enhance fine motor skills by using tweezers, eye drops, long salad tongs, and pliers to
pick up different materials.
3. To practice counting skills by counting the objects caught by each student.
4. To understand practical living skills of a bird by discussing why a birds beak is important
to survive.

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Amani Beydoun

Special Objectives:
1. To support Moussas social skills by encouraging peers communication about what is
happening in the experiment.
2. To support Ali during transition of materials by allowing him to move from tool to the
next and giving his peers a turn with the tool she was using.

Technology use:

Use Elmo to project on promethean board or smart board larger images.

Materials:

2 bowls (Stomach)
4+ tweezers
4+ tongs
Small beads
Cotton balls
Sea shells
Tiny pebbles
Big rocks
Stop watch (Sand timer)

Materials preparation and set up:

This lesson should take place on a big table with enough room for students to move around. The
materials should be spread out and washed before use. The environments should be prepared
ahead of time.

Motivation:

After group time, the teacher will tell students what investigations are open. The teacher will
bring the tweezers and tongs to the circle area and explain that we will learn about bird becks and
how they work. Explain to students that we will be exploring with the tweezers and tongs to
observe which one can pick up the most materials.
Procedure
1. Ask students what they know about the materials by asking questions.
a. What do you know about tweezers?
b. What do you know about tongs?
c. What do you notice about the pliers?

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Amani Beydoun

2. Tell the students we will be learning about bird beaks and show them different
pictures of birds.
a. Tell me what do you notice about the duck?
b. What do you notice about the robin?
c. What do you notice about the humming bird?
3. Explain to students how the experiment will be conducted by flipping the timer and
picking up as many materials as possible. Then go through the following steps:
a. You are going to pretend to be a hungry bird. Each bird wants to find a home
where they can eat and live.
b. You will start to eat using the tool I give you when I turn the sand timer and stop
when the sand is all gone.
c. You want to pick up as many objects as you can and place them in the birds
stomach (empty cup).
d. We will count how many objects you collected at the end.
4. Have the students take turns using different tools in each environment. Ask
questions after each turn.
a. What did you notice happened in this environment?
b. What does this tool remind you of?
c. What did happen when you used the tweezers?
d. How are these tools alike?
e. How are these tools different?
5. After everyone had a turn ask students to compare the tools to the birds pictures
they seen earlier.
a. What do you notice about the ducks beak?
b. Why couldnt the duck eat from the cube environment?
c. What do you notice about the robin?
d. I noticed the robin did not eat much in the water environment, tell me more about
that.
6. After students have discussed the pictures and experiment take down notes on their
thinking to see what experiment can be done next.

Closure:

Ask students what did we learn about birds today and have them tell their peers one thing they
learned about birds.

Transition:

Ask students to clean up any materials off the floor and making a new choice.