Bluebird

Integrated Lesson for Second Grade

This lesson idea combines science, language arts, drama, dance, and music. The game is straight-forward and engaging. This game can be played with many grade levels beyond or before second.  

Objective
Explore the movement of a variety of birds within the context of Bluebird, Bluebird through My Window. 

Standards
Music

• Perform: Sing folk, traditional, and call-and-response songs in tune, using a natural, unstrained voice.
• Connect: Describe how music relates to personal, social, emotional, and intellectual development, use life experience and additional content knowledge to inspire and respond to music, and deepen understanding of another content area through music.

Science

• Life Science:  Tell how external features affect an animals’ ability to survive in its environment. (Indicator: Compare and contrast the characteristics of living things in different habitats.)

Language Arts

• Reading Informational Text: Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
• Speaking and Listening: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Drama 

• Create: Define roles and responsibilities and participate in group decision making.
• Create: Create character through physical movement, gesture, sound and/or speech and facial expression based on stories or through improvisation.

Dance

• Perform: Move safely in general space through a range of activities and group formations while maintaining personal space.
• Perform: Demonstrate clear pathways and intent when performing locomotor and non-locomotor movements.​

Process

• Teach the singing game by playing it: Have the students stand in a circle with hands pressed together to create "windows." Choose one student to be "it" and to "fly" through the windows while the teacher sings the song. At the end of the song the child stands facing another child and asks, "(Name), would you like to be the bluebird?" Usually children say "yes." If "no," the one who is "it" asks, "Will you please ask someone else if they would like to be the bluebird?" Then the one who was "it" joins the circle and the game continues with the new bluebird.
• Encourage the children to sing along after they have heard the song 8 to 10 times.
• At some point, let the children choose what kind of bird they would like to be. The questions are "(Name), would you like to be the bird?" "What kind of bird would you like to be?" I feel the scripted questions are an important part of the game requiring the children to speak in complete sentences and call each other by name. 
• The game, at any point, can be played with multiple bird. Have the "windows" choose whose name they will sing based on who is closest to them at that point in the song. When the students are choosing what kind of bird to be, have the new ones who are "it" huddle in the center of the circle and come to a quick consensus on what kind of bird they would like to be and how that particular bird will fly.
• Encourage the students to fly like the bird they have chosen by asking them "How would this bird fly?"
• In a subsequent lesson, have the students read about (research) different kinds of birds and how each would fly and why.
• Then, at another point, play the game again with more informed decisions on how the various birds would fly (or walk). 

Extensions

• This song partners well with Skip to My Lou; they can be sung simultaneously.
• The song doesn't have to be about birds going through windows. In fact, it could be about anything going through anything.
• The game can also be played in a scatter formation with students standing in pairs (like London Bridge) and students flying through the windows. This version could involve many birds and exploration of a variety of locomotor movements. "Children, children, skip through the windows." ​