"I found an empty nest! Can we keep it?" Owen's joy of discovery has caught everyone's attention. Three-year-old Avery, comes running. "Are there eggs? Can I see?" she begs.

"Can I see?" she asks of her older and wiser, five-year-old friend.

"There are no eggs, just an old nest, can we please have it?" pleads Owen.

Owen begins to gently remove the nest only to realize that this is a pretty sturdy home for a bird. After a few tugs, he very gently hands the nest over to Ave. We have a collection of nests. We love to investigate which materials were used and how they were assembled. We explore what bird lived in which nest and guess how many eggs were hatched in this habitat.

I watch as Ave silently collects data as she turns the nest in one direction and then another. " I think she used some liter, to build this nest." Ave giggles.

"She added string, and look at this piece of wire she weaved in!" shares Maya. "It's very lightweight but very strong. How long does it take her to make this nest?" This is how we set our curriculum for the day. We follow their lead. When we return home we will dig out our books and other nests to compare and develop an understanding of the engineering that these birds use to build their homes.

Living along the Mississippi River, each winter and spring we are blessed by the return of our beloved bald eagles. From December to March, these magnificent birds migrate south from Canada and often make our area their winter home. Some even like it so much that they make it their permanent home. In the fall and winter, the eagles use the nest to eat and prepare the nest for the next season. Eagles nesting in our area typically lay eggs in mid-late February and the eggs hatch in mid-late March. The eaglets grow quickly and are ready to fly “fledge” in late May or early June. We have a number of WebCams set up by area organizations that we can watch all this eagle life happening before our eyes.

This is where I struggle. We are a screen free environment. I know we can link so much learning with technology. I know I need to stop being so stubborn. I am that old school playground leader who hasn't embraced all the benefits that can be found using technology intentionally.

We weren't always screen free and one of my very favorite memories comes from the year that we did watch a wee bit of eagle life on a local webcam. I hated it, but I loved learning about the eagles. When an eagle would bring a large fish to the The guilt had overcome me. The fact that we had been sucked into screen time conflicted with everything I believed in for early education. So, when the first warm day of spring arrived, we created our own eagles nest in our own back yard.

"Declan, remind me, how big is an eagles nest?" I asked with a measuring tape in my hand.

"Seven Feet Wide. What are you doing?"

I quickly measure out seven feet and put a heavy rock from the rain garden on the spot. Suddenly, I had a gang of small friends adding rocks until we created a 7 foot in circumference circle. I thought I was finished making my point and for a few minutes this gravitated to eagle family play in my happy little rock nest.

"Wait! This isn't a nest!" Ha! Asa was calling me out!

"We need branches and sticks!" shared four year old Joshua. " Over here!" directed two year old Gabe.

Game on! Now we are learning! Now we are creating and analyzing. Extending our learning from screen time into real life hands on learning. When parents ask, "How will they be ready for kindergarten if they play all day?" This is when we articulate the play. This is when we show how this Eagle Nest Play meets all the science and math standards that we struggle to achieve on a worksheet!

This is when we grab our books and research that wingspan is 6 to 8 feet. That an eagle has 7000 feathers and weighs 8 to 11 pounds. Their eye site is so good they could read a newspaper a football field length away. These are the details children tend to absorb. Because bald eagles are most active from sunrise to 11 am, as they feed along the open water of our lock and dams, this coincides quite well with our outdoor times. Lucky for us, they also return to their roosting areas in the afternoon hours.

After lunch, eagle books and naps, the boys made their way back out to their new eagles nest. If they build it, they will play in it. They had been playing there for a good long time, when sure enough, up in the sky...an eagle!

Yes, a real live eagle! (That little black spot between the roof and the tree tops) Would she think this was HER nest? Could she see them in her nest? Pure terror crossed their little faces as they quickly scrambled out of the eagles nest. My poor little friends were sure this eagle would make its way to their nest. The eagle did not land in our nest. Sadly, our frightened little learners didn't either. I left the nest there for over a week.

Maybe the learning had reached its point. I often find that most of the fun is in the building of the project. The collaboration, creating, adding and subtracting, analyzing and evaluating through a masterpiece project with friends. This is the good stuff that happens with play, time and sometimes, just the right amount of technology.

Nest Investigations