Pablo and Birdy – Unit Study + January Bird Drawing

Hi friends, we recently finished listening to the Audible version of “Pablo and Birdy” read by the author, Alison McGee. We really enjoyed the story and we did some fun activities as part of our unit study to go along with it. We even decided to draw Birdy as our bird of the month for January. We hope you enjoy!

Snacks:

• Parrot Punch: equal parts lemonade, pineapple juice, and ginger ale – recipe adapted from A Pirate Cookbook: Simple Recipes for Kids
• Pepitas – pumpkin seeds
• Elephant Ears Recipe – we had no idea what “elephant ears” were and we enjoyed them So Much! It’s no wonder the stray dog couldn’t resist stealing them!

Art: We drew Birdy by following this tutorial from Art for Kids we added a longer curlier tail and colored her “Lavender, with under-feathers of iridescent blue-green” (Pg 13) to make her look like Birdy and not like a Green-Cheeked Conure. I got these Metallic Markers for the iridescent blue-green.

Science: sound-science-experiments

Science (zoology): look up the different birds mentioned in the book.

African Grey Parrot

Budgie

Monk parakeet

Rhode Island Red

Science (botany): look up Bougainvillea

Vocabulary:

• hawking their wares – selling the things they’ve made
• ritual – doing the same thing at the same time regularly
• perpetual – nonstop
• wheeled – fly in a wide curve
• scanning – looking quickly over a large area
• Dios me bendiga necklace – God bless me necklace
• flotsam – debris floating in the water that wasn’t deliberately thrown into the water
• iridescent – bright colors that seem to change in different angles
• Mon dieu! – Good heavens!
• coax – attempt to persuade
• roving – constantly moving
• eavesdropping – secretly listening in on someone else’s conversation
• nice threads – your clothes are stylish
• lookin’ sharp – you look beautiful/handsome
• emissaries – people sent on a special mission
• precocity – very cleaver or mature as a child
• sous-chef – second in command under the head chef
• This book had so much great vocabulary I could keep going on and on with this list…

Bible: Read the story of Moses – another baby found in the water.

Social Studies:

• look up Henna Tattoos
• Pablo is an immigrant who doesn’t know where he came from. He has no family history. Make a family tree and interview some of your older relatives to find out where your family history comes from.

Life Skills: Do you know of someone who has immigrated to your country, state, city, school, church or neighborhood recently? Go out of your way to be welcoming and kind to them! Make an effort, make efforts repeatedly, take risks, show love to them! You never know how much it might mean to them.

We really enjoyed listening to the Audible version of this book read by the author. The book was full of interesting new vocabulary, colorful characters, and short phrases in Spanish and French. It works really well as a homeschool unit study book. We hope you will check it out at your local library to read or listen to the audio version.

Happy homeschooling friends!