Gather Round Homeschool: North American Birds - Free Resources!

We are a first year Gather Round Homeschool family and LOVE it!

North American Birds is the unit we started with. If I’m honest, I wasn’t really sure how interested I was going to be in this as I’ve never considered myself a bird person. HOWEVER, we thoroughly enjoyed this study, myself included! Birds are fascinating and I’ll never look at them the same.

If you are unfamiliar with this curriculum, be sure to check out this blog post that tells more about it or download free samples of some of the units to try for yourself!

The Resources:

These “extras” are the things that I love about doing unit studies! It helps make the lessons even more immersive!

I’ve also found that our lessons go so much more smoothly when I have everything that I want to introduce to my kids all organized and ready to go. Sometimes we may not get to everything or even go down a different rabbit trail of learning but it’s so helpful to have what I want readily available.

I understand how time-consuming this is, though! So, I’m sharing with you some of the playlists and resources we have used for the North American Birds unit study so that you can have what you need without all the planning!

My playlists are geared toward elementary and under because that is where my kids are. There are lots of other videos you could add if you have older kids as well.

While I’ve used these resources with my kids, I always recommend that you preview them before using with your kiddos to make sure it’s a good fit for your family.

Gather Round Homeschool: NAB – YouTube Playlist

Most of these videos are ones I showed my kiddos. They go in order from Lesson 1 – 20 to make your life easier! Use what you like, leave what you don’t, add what you need.

They can be used during the lesson, after the lesson, or anytime really! How they are used is entirely up to you.

Gather Round Homeschool: NAB – Pinterest Board

Pinterest is such a fantastic way to gather ideas…and recipes! I’ve been a fan for a long time. Sometimes I use the ideas that I find directly and other times scrolling pinterest inspires ideas of my own.

This is yet another thing that takes a little time, so here is your shortcut!

This board has all the ideas that I saved for the Gather Round Homeschool NAB unit…including recipes, crafts, STEM projects, and more.

Some of these were used for our “End of Unit” party we throw at the, you guessed it, end of each unit! 🙂 It helps give an official closing before moving on to the next unit.

I often set up this “party” with activity stations consisting of different crafts, projects, art, etc. related to some of the topics we discussed in the unit. Some other things to do are group science experiments that we didn’t get to, read any books we had leftover, present our writing projects to the family, have bird themed food, and watch a related movie.

My girls have loved finishing out our units this way! It takes a little planning, but it’s worth it!

Gather Round Homeschool: NAB – Book List & More!

Book List:

Rebecca Spooner, the creator of Gather Round Homeschool, has an amazing book list in the front of every unit’s Teacher’s Guide. It’s even divided up by levels to make it easy! I was able to get most of the ones I wanted from our local library and then used Amazon and Thrift Books to pick up any that were remaining.

I also used a few additional books not on that list:

The Magic Treehouse: Stagefright on a Summer’s Night, by Mary Pope Osborne (Shakespeare)
The Magic School Bus Flies from the Nest, by Joanna Cole
Wings on Things, by Marc Brown
Great Day for Up, by Dr. Seuss
Oodles of Doodles, by Nikalas Catlow
Do You Doodle?, by Nickalas Catlow

Shows & Movies:

Here are some great choices for added entertainment that can further reinforce your bird theme!

Wild Kratts (PBS and Amazon Prime)
- “Falcon City” Season 1
- “Birds of a Feather” Season 1
- “To Touch a Hummingbird” Season 2
- “Osprey” Season 3
- “Back in Creature Time: Day of the Dodo” Season 3
- “Snowy Owl Invasion” Season 4
- “The Fourth Bald Eagle” Season 5
- “The Erminator” Season 5 (chickadee)
Magic School Bus (Netflix)
- “Cracks a Yolk” Season 4
Magic School Bus Rides Again (Netflix)
- “Claw and Order” Season 2
The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That (PBS and Amazon Prime)
- “Migration Vacation” Season 1
- “Nest Best Thing” Season 1
- “The Lost Egg” Season 1
- “Fabulous Feathers” Season 2
Curious George (PBS and Amazon Prime)
- “Curious George’s Home for Pigeons” Season 1
- “Water to Ducks” Season 1
- “For the Birds” Season 3
- “Monkey’s Duckling” Season 5
- “George and Allie’s Egg-cellent Adventure” Season 10
- “Cuckoo Cockatoo” Season 12
Chicken Run
Chicken Little
Legend of the Guardians
The Trumpet of the Swan
The Swan Princess
Pixar Shorts: For the Birds and Piper
Fly Away Home (recommended in Gather Round Teacher’s Guide)
The Eagle Huntress
Planet of the Birds (Disney +)

Other Activities:

Wingspan Wall

Bird Egg Design

Gather Round Homeschool North American Bird Resources — One of my favorite activities was taking hardboiled eggs and using sharpies to make them look like a real bird egg! We used the inside cover of the book *An Egg is Quiet* for our inspiration. I highly recommend this book in general…it’s fantastic.

Bird Watching

I hope that these pre-planned resources help save you time in your unit study planning! Enjoy!

Make sure to check out my resource pages for Gather Round Homeschool Asia, Space, Europe, Oceans, Africa, Earth Science, North America, and The Human Body too!

If you love theming as much as I do, then take the NAB unit even farther with these bird themed morning menus for your morning basket or morning time!