Assignment:

• Memorize the selection.
• Break up the selection into sections for easier memorizing.
• Continue with the next lessons as the student memorizes the poem.
• Go over what kind of letter I is always written.

Resources:
American Robin Information
Robin Notebooking – Primary
Robin Notebooking – Ruled

 
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Websites:
American Robin Migration Tracking – This website tracks the Robin’s migration from January to May. There is a lot of information on this website.

American Robin – Includes labeled coloring, coloring, mazes, and a toilet paper craft.

Color A Robin Online – You can print black and white or color the bird on the computer and then print. Scroll down to the Robin.

Photos of Robins – Some really nice pictures and information on Robins.

 

AMERICAN ROBIN

Male—Olive-gray above; head black; throat white streaked with black; bill yellow; feet dark; breast and under parts chestnut-brown; rump light; wings dark brown margined with lighter color; tail black with outer feathers tipped with white.

Female, similar but of a little lighter color.

The young have breast and under parts spotted with black.

Length, ten inches.

The Robin is one of the tamest and friendliest of birds, coming even into the heart of cities and towns in perfect confidence. Everybody loves him. We have fallen into the habit of calling him Robin Redbreast, but that name does not correctly describe him, for his breast is chestnut-brown. The true Redbreast is the Robin of England, a bird which is a third smaller than ours.

Robins are hardy birds and endure very cold weather. Some which have wintered no farther south than Virginia hurry north too early in March and often meet heavy snow storms. At such times they take refuge in barns and thick woods where, if the storm lasts very long, many starve to death. A moderate snow storm does not worry these harbingers of spring, for they can live two or three days on very little food. They are slow in leaving for the Southern States in the fall, often lingering until Thanksgiving time before the last of them depart from this vicinity.

The nest, made of mud and held together with dry grass, is usually located in a tree, from ten to thirty feet above the ground. Beams and ledges in open buildings and porches are sometimes selected as sites for nesting. The nest is about an inch in thickness and always well supported. The work of building it is shared by both birds whose union day of labor is sixteen hours long. The nest building is quickly done under such circumstances. The eggs, three to five, are greenish-blue, 1.00 x .80 inches.

The foundations of a nest were laid on the fire escape of the author’s school on Thursday morning, and on the following Monday, it was not only completed but it contained two eggs. Two more eggs were laid on the two following days. Then for the next fourteen days the patient female brooded her eggs. During twenty days after that both birds hurried back and forth several times an hour between that nest and nearby gardens bringing unnumbered worms to their babies. The nest building, the hatching and the feeding were done in the presence of hundreds of children who looked down daily into the nest. When at last, during an intermission, the parent birds coaxed their family to fly to the nearest tree, a thousand throats cheered the young travelers and bade them good-bye.

Possibly the Robins may take a ripe cherry or two from the farmer’s trees, but they more than repay the owner by the destruction of many noxious worms and insects. As you watch the old birds bringing food to their children, you wonder where they stow away all of it. Their little mouths are always open at the approach of either parent and their cry for more is almost constant. By a careful test made with a Robin when it was six weeks old, it was found to eat one and two-fifths times its own weight of earth-worms in a day.

In cities and towns as well as in the country, the worst enemies of the Robins are not bad boys but cats which climb the trees and get the little ones or watch and wait until they leave the nest and come to the ground. Then they catch and eat them. If Robins did not raise two broods of young a year, the cats would soon greatly reduce their numbers if they did not destroy the species.

 

A Robin’s Nest:

A robin builds its nest out of large spears of grass and lines it first with mud and then with soft grass.

How does the robin make the inside of the nest smooth before the soft grass is added? You can find out by watching a robin build a nest in spring.

In what part of a tree does a robin build its nest? Look at several robins’ nests and see if they are built equally well.

Have you ever heard the robins sing at daybreak? They are among the first of the birds to waken, and they sing in a loud chorus as if to call the rest.