On Friday we participated in the Mad River Valley Christmas bird count.  During math, one of our stations was watching the birds at the feeder, recording the number of each kind of bird we saw at a given time (to ensure birds are not counted more than once, the highest number of each species is used in the official count). We began with children counting and sharing results for me to record on the official recording sheet, but quickly everyone decided to do their own recording.  In math we have spent lots of time talking about counting sets of objects in an organized way, making sure that each item is counted only once.  This was tricky with moving birds, but perhaps made it more exciting!  We observed goldfinches, nuthatches, chickadees,  downy woodpeckers, and tufted titmice.  We will share our results with Patti Haynes who is a member of the Mad River birders.   I was too busy recording totals to get many photos, but below is a picture of children recording their own data and avery brief video clip.