Bird of Prey Study Guide





As I type, I am hearing the "Hallelujah Chorus" play in my head.  I started working on this study guide around the time Joy Focused Learning went live over a month ago!  That may or may not seem like a long time to you but it sure does to me!  Since starting this project, I can't see a large bird flying overhead without trying to figure out which bird it is.  I usually decide it is a Turkey Vulture - I could be totally wrong but at least I feel like I know what I am talking about.  :)


C is actually only in Kindergarten "officially" and in some areas she is within a K - 1 range (writing, math).  In a lot of areas though, I have noticed that she is able and enjoys working at a higher level if she finds it interesting.  A lot of the basic animal studies for K or 1st don't go deep enough for her.

One of her favorite shows to watch is Wild Kratts and through watching that show and reading nonfiction(she says nonfiction are her favorite) books - she knows so much about animals, she's even schooled me on a few things.  Do you know what a gharial is?  I didn't - in all honesty, it took me a minute or two to get you a link because I couldn't figure out how to spell gharial.  C kept mentioning how cool gharials are described exactly what they look like and what they do so I looked it up and boom - there it was. 

About a month ago we did this shark unit study from Royal Baloo. That unit is at about second grade level and C loved it!  She asked to study birds of prey after we finished the shark unit so we looked at books about birds of prey the next time we were at the library.  She has a tendency to want every book about whatever subject she wants to study, never mind it is at a sixth grade or higher level.  I decided to give her some choices and she, of course, chose the most difficult and in depth one:  Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalists Birds of Prey

Click the image to see it on Amazon. (affiliate link)

According to Amazon, this book is written at a 4th-6th grade level, but because it is about something C loves, she hasn't gotten frustrated with the difficulty level at all.  I am not sure what "grade level" to assign this study guide - I tried to not have it be too difficult but also give her the depth the she wants.  C does get tired of writing so I tried to include some "circle the correct answer" options and I tried to make the spaces for the answers bigger than I thought necessary - if there was enough space.  If you child loves to study animals like C I would say maybe 2nd - 4th grade?  I would love some comments from you guys about where this unit falls compared to your child's grade level.

All of the images in this unit are from Wikimedia Commons.

Here are some sample pages:

Introduction on How to Watch Birds of Prey

You can see on this page for the Barn Owl in the pinkish box I included the definition of roost - on another page I did the same for migrate.  



C's favorite: the Peregrine Falcon.  There is a great Wild Kratts episode about Peregrine Falcons.  When you get to this page you may want to check pbskids.org or Netflix to see if it is available.

On this page for the Great Horned Owl you can see one of the "label the features" activities.  These match up with the labeled drawings in the book. 

Birds of Prey Covered in this unit

* Bald Eagle     * Golden Eagle     * Turkey Vulture     *Black Vulture     *Osprey    

 *Red-tailed Hawk     *Northern Goshawk     * Northern Harrier     *Peregrine Falcon

*Cooper's Hawk     *Sharp - shinned Hawk     * Merlin     * American Kestrel

* Great Horned Owl     * Snowy Owl     * Barn Owl     *Short - eared Owl     * Long - eared Owl

*Screech Owl

There are 2-3 pages for each bird (19 birds in all - no wonder it took me so long!).  I included space to draw the bird in its habitat for almost every bird.  I also have 3 boxes with the habitat, voice and food information filled in already.  There was a lot of info for each bird and I wanted this study guide to be something C could refer to later.  I didn't want to make her work longer by asking questions about each those things plus everything else, there is already a lot of work!

I definitely recommend purchasing the book if you can, it will take awhile to get through all of the material.  You can also check your local library.  If you do decide to purchase it, I would appreciate it if you purchased it through my affiliate link.  All of the printables on my blog are free - and I have no plans of changing that in that future, your support through affiliate purchases will help me keep the freebies coming.  Thank you so much!  I have added the book to my Amazon recommendations which you can find on the bottom of this post.  







This unit is split into two files, I started working on it in Word and decided to switch over to Publisher - it is just so much easier for things like this!  Instead of moving all the pages over, I left them split because I knew it would be a huge file.

Click on the links below to download.

Birds of Prey part 1

Birds of Prey part 2

Click here for a list of crafts, videos and resources to supplement your unit. 

If you use it with your kids, please leave a comment and let me know what you think!  Thanks!

~Angela

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