Making Bird Nest : experiences on International Animal Rights Day

Books with environmental themes and living values have been chosen by the Read with Me program to impart these concepts with children around Iran. Accordingly, librarians at Gouriyeh Read with Me Library, have shared their experience of reading aloud “How to Heal a Broken Wing” and making a bird nest:

Book Name: How to Heal a Broken Wing / Bob Graham
Date: 13 January 2020
Age Group: 4 – ۵ year-olds
Location: Gouriyeh, Khouzestan Province

Before Reading Aloud: Dialogue

With International Animal Rights Day approaching, we decided to read-aloud “How to Heal a Broken Wing”. In the beginning we discussed different types of animals, birds in particular. “Do you like birds? Why?”, I asked.

“Because they fly… I like all birds that fly.”, answered Yousef.

“I have 10 pigeons at home!”, said Narges.

Then I asked them if they saw any other animals in their neighborhood. They quickly responded: cows, sheep, goats, etc. They started making animal sounds as well!

Omran, who had been quiet all this time suddenly said: “I saw a very very big cow, it was so beautiful!” He had seen a water buffalo! So we talked about buffalos for a while.

During Reading Aloud: How to Heal a Broken Wing

When reading aloud, children were silent and listened to the story. In some parts, they accompanied me in telling the story because they could easily guess the storyline from the illustrations.

After Reading Aloud: Making a Bird Nest

With help from children, we made paper birds. Then Narges asked me which of its wings was broken. Zeinab had put her bird inside a basket and was explaining to others how the boy in the story had taken care of the bird. Hossein asked what pigeons ate. Narges told him that they ate seeds.

Then, we asked children if they wanted to make a bird nest. We explained that in winter, food is scarce and we could help birds out by giving them seeds. They were so happy to be able to help. When the nest was ready, Hossein had an idea: “Let me paint something on the nest, so that birds like it more.” We put the nest up on a tree in the library yard and awaited our little guests to arrive.