Hammering in the morning: High-schoolers help kindergartners build birdhouses
Kindergarten student Bryant takes a swing with the hammer at a birdhouse at Washington Elementary on Friday. (Press photo James Grob.)
Teacher Jim Lundberg bravely holds the nail as kindergartner Miracle swings the hammer as she builds her wren house at Washington Elementary on Friday. (Press photo James Grob.)
Washington Elementary teacher Kim Niichel celebrates with student Serenity after completing the building of a wren house Friday. (Press photo James Grob.)
Tenth-grader Ally Faulkner watches kindergartner Kaylee Jo pound a nail into a wren house at Washington Elementary on Friday. (Press photo James Grob.)
Kindergartner Miracle pounds the nail into the wren house she’s building as David Voves assists at Washington Elementary on Friday. (Press photo James Grob.)
David Voves leads a class of kindergartners in a wren house-building project at Washington Elementary on Friday. (Press photo James Grob.)
10th-grader Ally Faulkner teaches some kindergartners about wrens and birdhouses at Washington Elementary on Friday. (Press photo James Grob.
Kindergarten student Miracle seems happy with her new hammer as she builds a wren house at Washington Elementary on Friday. (Press photo James Grob.)
By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com
Sometimes, school is for the birds.
More specifically on Friday, kindergarten teacher Kim Niichel’s class was for the wrens.
A group of about 15 high school students visited the younger students on Friday at Washington Elementary and helped them put together wren houses.
“We made these at our shop at the high school and we helped the kindergartners build them,” said 10th-grader Ally Faulkner.
Faulkner and her classmates armed the students with hammers and gave them a lesson on hammer safety. From the sounds of the pounding, the kindergartners were well-armed and well-trained.
“It’s a fun project, to help the kids learn how to use a hammer,” said 10th-grader Austin Connerley. “It’s good for the kids to get experience together with higher grade-level and get experience with us. It’s also good for us to spend time with them.”
Friday was the first visit. The high school students will return Monday and Tuesday.
About 15-20 high school students visit different kindergarten classes on three separate days to build the wren houses. The high school students design the birdhouse kits, bring them down and help the kindergartners put them together.
After the houses are completed, the students get a quick lesson on birds and wrens. The kindergartners can take home the wren houses they built, decorate them if they like, and put them up in their yards for the neighborhood wrens to use.
“They’re meant for specifically wrens, nothing else will go nest in them,” Connerley said. “You can open them on the side to take old nests out of them, because the wrens won’t go back to their original nests.”
Faulkner and her high school classmates learned a little bit about bird life along with the younger students. Before the project, she said, she didn’t know that different birds could be so particular about their living arrangements.
“I guess I learned about birdhouses, because I thought they all just went to the same home,” she said.
The project is a part of a Charles City High School “Construction by the Numbers” class taught by Jim Lundberg and David Voves.
“I do the construction and he does the numbers,” said Lundberg.
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