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All About Parrots

There are more than 350 species of parrots. Students will learn about these intelligent social birds and design a textured collage.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

Steps

  • Step 1

    Parrots are in the Psittaciformes order, and are further subdivided into three superfamilies: Psittacoidae, Cacatuoidea, and Strigopoidea. They are found mainly in warm climates of the southern hemisphere but also live in the wild in some northern areas. Have students explore some facts about various types of parrots such as macaws, cockatoos, cockatiels, parakeets, African greys, conures, and others. For example, they are known for their intelligence, which may be a reason for their longevity since animals with larger brains tend to live longer. Most birds have four toes, but parrots are zygodactyl, meaning they have two toes in front and two in back (rather than three in front and one in the back) for optimum grip. And it is believed that they originated on the supercontinent of Gondwana before it broke apart.

  • Step 2

    Have students choose a type of parrot to depict in a textured collage. They can draw the parrot's body on one piece of heavy paper and the two wings on another. They can outline and cut out the parrot's curved beak on a portion of the heavy paper. Next, they can color light construction paper using various colors that represent their chosen parrot, then cut these into strips. Additionally, they can cut slits into these strips to give it a feathery effect. 

  • Step 3

    Ask students to arrange and glue the body, wings, and beak on a piece of construction paper and then glue the feathery strips to the image.

  • Step 4

    Have students present their art and discuss some of the facts they learned about these beautiful and colorful birds.

Standards

SCI: Describe what living organisms have in common (eating, breathing, growing, and reproducing) and distinguish them from non-living things.

SCI: Design pictorial or graphic representations/models that are useful in communicating ideas. 

Adaptations

About 50 million parrots live in captivity, mainly as house pets. Have students explore some notable public examples, such as Alex (who was able to identify and understand about 150 words and distinguish colors and shapes) and Snowball the dancing cockatoo who became famous because of his dancing videos that went viral.

Ask students to predict the weight of various types of birds, for example a cockatoo, an owl, or a peregrine falcon. Then have them look up the average weight. They might be surprised to learn that an average cockatoo weighs about 10 oz. and a medium-sized owl weighs anywhere from 4-16 oz. That's because their bone density is light, which minimizes the energy needed to fly.