people • birds • place
BirdWords Workshops: 5 Lesson Plans to Explore Bird-People and People-Bird Relationships
The EWA BirdWords Workshop series is a collection of lesson plans designed to encourage creative engagement about the relationships between birds and people.
The BirdWords Workshop materials were created in 2019 by Felice Wyndham and Megan Kerr of The Writer's Greenhouse in Oxfordshire. We are grateful for funding from the Open World Research Initiative's Creative Multilingualism project and guidance and consultation with Karen Park, Andy Gosler, and John Fanshawe. All materials are licensed as CC BY-NC 4.0 (you are welcome to use them for free in a non-commercial way if you give attribution).
Downloadable Workshop Guides
Teacher/ Workshop Leader Overview: Activities 1 to 5
START HERE for an overview of all the BirdWords Workshops and downloads of printable pdf booklets with all the activities collated.
Download this Teachers' Overview Table for at-a-glance pedagogical relationships between and across activities
Download this Teacher Introduction for an overview and background of the project
Activity 2: What do we think of them?
In this activity, participants explore bird idioms in the language of interest through a bingo game. Then the group discusses what idioms tell us about how we relate to different birds.
Download Activity 2 Lesson Plan
Download Bingo Card Handouts for Activity 2. Note this document has over 100 pages of different bingo-generator cards; print only as many as you need (1 per student):
Download Handout B discussion questions for Activity 2:
Activity 4: What do they sound like?
Participants discuss bird sounds then, according to level, knowledge, and local expressions, explore a) warblish (phrases birds are “saying”), bird-specific onomatopoeia (eg “cock-a-doodle-do), or general vocabulary for bird sounds (eg “chirrup”).
Download Activity 4 Lesson Plan:
Download Handout on onomatopoeia answers for Activity 4:
Download Handout birdsong vocabulary answers for Activity 4:
Download cards to cut (1 set per 4 students):
Activity 1: What do we call them?
In this activity, workshop participants invent names for unfamiliar birds, to explore common patterns in how, when, and why we name birds. They compare invented names with heritage names for local birds: What does this tell us about how we see birds? Think about them? Feel about them?
Download Activity 1 Lesson Plan:
Download Handout A on bird names for Activity 1:
Download Handout B on bird naming strategies for Activity 1:
Download a set of colour bird cards to use in Activities 1 and 3 - print, cut, and if desired, laminate:
Template (Word doc) in case you want to create your own set of bird cards to use in Activities 1 and 3:
Activity 3: How do we group them?
Participants group cards of birds as many different ways as they can think of, to explore the different options for classification / taxonomy.
Download the Lesson Plan for Activity 3:
Download Handout A on bird groupings for Activity 3:
Download Handout B discussion questions for Activity 3 (1 sheet per 16 students):
Activity 5: Where are they going?
Participants explore when and where their local swallow populations are heading to next and send postcards to another school or group along the migration route.
Download the Lesson Plan for Activity 5:
Download a template for blank postcards (print on cardstock, cut):