Birds and a new wall

Up until this point in our homeschooling adventure we pulled topics as out as needed and generally just worked around them, moving them out of the way for dinner, crafts, and general living.  Baskets of things here, a pile of books there, and lots of art taped to the refrigerator.  Such is the life when living in a small house.  But, we recently did a fair amount of rearranging, repainting, and redecorating and somehow I managed to end up with an entire space free to finally do a project I've been wanting to do for ages.  I was able to create this "unit wall" to display all the necessary items for whatever particular topic the girls happen to be focused on at the current moment.  

Folks, I am in love with this wall...and not just because it happens to be my very favorite paint color too.  It is amazing to have a space to leave out all of the things we're accessing on a daily basis and have it look nice in the process.  We tested it out with our bird themed love a couple weeks ago and it was a huge success.  

I adore this frame and the fact that we can easily change what hangs there from minute to minute.  It was the perfect place to display the girls' hummingbird drawings.  This is actually a wall in our kitchen so it gets a lot of traffic and the accessibility has really made a difference on the girls' interest and ability to learn independently.  We have journals full of bird drawing and facts, pictures hanging in various places around the house, and a new found respect for the feathered friends that live in our area.  While there wasn't a lot going on in the arts and crafts department with these birds, we were extremely busy bird watching everywhere we went.  

A trip to the zoo, a visit to the local lake to feed the ducks, and even just sitting in various places around the yard with our sketch books and cameras at the ready became a great bird learning time for all of us.  I'm proud of how hard the girls worked to create a bird friendly habitat, learning about the different birds native to our area and their particular needs too.  There is just something amazing about fostering a child's love of learning and giving them the freedom to explore what they love, and at their own pace.  While the bird display has come down off that particular wall now (following the request of a new topic of interest), the bird watching basket is still out and in daily use, and we certainly have no shortage of new bird art coming out daily.