Hear the Owl?

Hear the owl? One of the most fascinating sights and sounds of winter is the snowy owl. Owls are nocturnal, they hunt for their food and they can turn their heads to see behind them. We love to hear them hoot!

Owl Activities for Preschoolers

These activities are from Experience Curriculum’s Sights & Sounds of Winter (2018) or Cozy Winter Senses (Dec 2021). The theme web for this week is shown below:

Hear the Owl? Turn and Look Name Game

After talking about what we know about owls, we played a name recognition game. It also focused on listening skills but mostly it was just fun!

Did you know that owls can turn their heads as much as 270 degrees? I showed the kids with our awesome snowy owl puppet about how far that is.

Everyone sat in a line and I stood behind them. When they heard me “hoot”, they attempted to turn just their head to see whose name tag I was holding up.

Just a fun way to build social awareness and learn each other’s names.

Flying Owls Letter Recognition

Our letters of the month are B, O, and P. O is for owl. And orange and octopus.

We sorted the phonics cards like shown below and then found items around the room that started with the letter.

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The lesson plan for the phonics game is shown below:

Then we put the letters B & P in the pocket cube. A child rolled the cube and identified the image and guessed what letter it started with.

Then they pretend the cotton ball was an owl and “flew” it to the correct letter card.

As basic as it sounds, they loved this activity!

Sometimes I bring out the phonics or literacy activities just before story time since they are linked. It breaks up our routine a little so everything isn’t happening at circle time. One of the girls reported to her mom that on this day we did “two circle times!” They love Mother Goose Time!

Story Time with Owl Babies

Owl Babies is a fabulous book. It’s about three babies owls who realize their mother is gone and worry until she comes back. The owlets feelings are relatable to parents and children. Like any children, they are thrilled when their mother returns.

Owl Shapes Math Game

Our small group math activity of the day actually involved everyone at once, but we’re still a small group, right?

Using the transparent pattern blocks included in Sights and Sounds, and the owl shapes, we sorted the pattern blocks onto the owl shapes cards.

We worked on identifying shapes and matching shapes.

The teacher’s guide includes creative ways to play a game, but we just took turns matching the blocks and that was enough this time. Working on taking turns can be challenging enough and it’s probably most important for my group.

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Owl Puppet Make and Play

Using simple materials like a owl shape, cupcake liners, wiggly eyes, a craft stick, markers, glue and feathers, we created owl puppets.

I set out all the supplies we need before circle time so it’s ready to go.

By the time we get to our creative art activities, we’ve really covered the topic of the day so everyone was very engaged in designing their owl puppets!

The owl puppets are an example of Mother Goose Time’s Make & Play activities. They are usually art projects that can be played with. I love this because it expands imagination and creativity even more.

Each owl is unique!

So much personality! Hear the owl? Hoot! Hoot!

Whoooo’s there?!

When I look at the snow owl puppets they made, I can see the skills and growth in each child. Some spent more time than ever coloring their puppet. One includes an elaborate design which shows that he planned his work and created what he saw in his mind. Another child attempted to copy him because he looks up to his big buddy.

We love owls! They are such big majestic birds. And so interesting. Owl play lasted longer than our day studying snowy owls in Outdoor Sights and Sounds. More on winter birds coming up!

More Sights & Sounds of Winter

• Winter Ice Activities
• Animal Tracks in the Snow
• The Sound of Drums