One of my goals for our homeschool this year, is to draw a different bird each month with the kiddos. To accompany my goal, I wanted us to learn about John James Audubon. Here are the books that I found at thrift stores for our mini unit study.
I also purchased, Birds of Idaho Field Guide and a secondhand copy of a large coffee table book of Audubon’s artwork, The Birds of America for reference.
Finally, we watched the documentary, Audubon on Prime video. I’m hoping we are sufficiently inspired to draw a different bird every month and meet my goal.
In September, we read The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong, illustrated by Maurice Sendak.
Our birds of the month for September were the storks from the story. We used an illustration in the book as our inspiration. We also consulted a book about storks borrowed from the library for coloring purposes, as Sendak’s illustrations are in black and white.
You’ll notice in the drawings below, that I didn’t notice that the beaks should be orange until it was too late! Luckily my kiddos noticed the error in time, and colored their beaks orange.
For October, we drew owls by following a tutorial on YouTube: How to Draw a Realistic Owl Tutorial
Here are two of our favorite owl books that tie in nicely with our bird of the month. I even have an old post on using Owl Moon for a unit study!
🦅 We hope this post inspires you to try drawing something in nature!
🦉 What is your favorite bird? Bonus points if you know of a book that features it too! Perhaps it will be one we draw in the near future…
heavens to betty 
Oh I love birds. I love hummingbirds. My favorite is Blue Bunting. The kids drawings are very good. We get Screech Owls, Quail and their babies, and once in a while a big old Vulture in the trees and on the roofs behind us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Grandma ❤️ S + K + B
LikeLike
Love it! Every unit of Ari’s California history we study some native wildlife. Today she learned about and sketched 2 birds…the California condor and the cliff swallow.
My favorite bird is the Pileated Woodpecker. I’m not sure of a book that has one in it though 🙂 One of my favorite books featuring birds is “A Cote of Many Colors” about carrier pigeons.
Hope to see more of your bird drawings! They’re excellent!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ari is such a great artist! I am looking forward to seeing some of her latest sketches!
Thanks for the bird ideas and book recommendation.
LikeLike
What a wonderful idea! Books and birds and art and nature combined.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for your kind comment! What birds frequent your neck of the woods?
LikeLiked by 1 person
We have Cardinals, gold finch, robins, sparrows, blue birds, nuthatch. Once in a while, we see a heron. Bald eagles in the winter – near the rivers. Love birds!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My favorite birds are mockingbirds and wrens – they’re both sassy. Sadly, I don’t know of any books featuring them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for the great bird ideas!
LikeLiked by 1 person