This year, I hosted my first-ever After School birding club. It had a fantastic level of interest: 23 new birders signed up!
I wasn’t nervous about lots of things. I have done lots of after school clubs. I like kids. And I know birds. And I know they show up at this school, because I’ve birded there before and had some fun feathered friends visit.
I was nervous because of the unknowns: how would the kids do sitting and listening? Would they be able to write in their journals outside? Would they do OK without binoculars? What if it rained all four weeks? What if someone had a bathroom emergency when we were outside of the school?
I made plans for as many contingencies and emergencies as I possibly could.
But you can’t plan for everything. You can’t plan for unexpected bathroom emergencies, sprinkles of rain, or birds deciding not to be there. We had pencils break, we had kids walk very fast ahead of the group and very slow behind the group. We had kids who would rather write poetry and kids who only wanted to look at one bird and were done.
I forgot to ask the PTO to limit the grades to 2-5, so I had a range of ages from K-5th grade, and that was hard. Luckily the older kids stepped up to help the younger kids read their checklists. And after the first week, I requested additional parent help.
Things weren’t all bad! We had kids who found a nest, kids who learned to recognize birds, kids who spotted hawks and helped each other with words they couldn’t read. The vast majority of young birders didn’t mind not using binoculars at all. I was able to get some lovely laminated bird guides for a reduced cost since this was an educational club and I know the kids loved them. They had tons and tons of questions and loved seeing bird photos, learning bird songs, and being outside.
My main takeaway: I loved hosting birding club. I can’t wait for next year when we will all be a bit more experienced!
