Learning about Robins

We have recently been walking. A lot. We are averaging around 25 miles a week, which given we have a four-year-old in tow, I don’t think is too bad! We are lucky that where we live we are a short walk to the canal and of course this is always a nice spot to walk. We are also close to woodland and hills so we have a good variety of places to wander.

We have been enjoying the canal walks and spotting the different birds that we see. There are various groups of ducks and geese that we spot each time we walk, and the children are getting good at knowing which stretch of the canal they usually occupy. I’m looking forward to when we start to see the chicks in a few months’ time.

Last week, we did a short project on robins. Robins are such a lovely little bird and we have spotted plenty of them recently that it seemed like a fun project to do.

Resources we used

For our project, I printed a couple of bits from Twinkl and some other sites.

• Robin writing frames
• The Robin page from this
• Robin Lifecycle
  • This one for the older two (6 and 8)
  • This one for H (4)

We filled these pages in after some conversation during our walks and using some books as a reference point too.

We spent time watching a really fascinating video that showed the Robin lifecycle from egg to flying the nest and the children loved the final fat robin! It’s well worth a watch and I’ve linked below. It’s a great way to show how close nature is to us all as well as being such a complete cycle from start to finish.

The children also used a series of online art tutorials to have a go at drawing their own robins. We used the three linked below:

• Draw with Rob
• Harriet Muller
• Art for Kids Hub

Books We Used

I have a separate post about the books we used for this project, which can be found here, but we particularly liked the Yuval Zommer Big Book of Birds and RSPB Nature Guide.

The final part of the project was for us to make some robin inspired biscuits. We used a basic biscuit recipe and added a spoonful of cocoa powder to give them a brown colour. After baking we added some red icing sugar and some edible eyes. Delicious and fun to make!

The children then did a zoom call with my parents to tell them all about robins and show their work. The robin picture at the top is an image I have used that my mum took recently; you can see more of her photos here.