Students Give Community Tour of Their Very Own Bird Museum

The third grade class at Lincoln School welcomed the community into their classrooms Tuesday morning to display the results of their year-long project dedicated to the study of birds.

Students welcomed their moms and dads, their school Superintendent Mark Porto and Mayor Rose Heck into their classrooms which they had transformed into a bird museum. Gayle Dubofsky, third grade teacher, has spearheaded the study of birds through a grant she earned from the NJEA HIPP Foundation for Excellence in Education.

The $10,000 grant enabled Dubofsky to set up a bird sanctuary right outside her classroom for the “Come Fly With Me” Project. 

Tuesday morning the students acted as docents, showing their parents and guests around the classroom displaying the projects they made in their bird study, Dubofsky said. Each student researched a particular type of bird and from there  made many projects such as diaramas of birds habitats, clay birds in nests and stuffed pillows shaped liked birds, she said. The students also wrote poetry.

Dubofsky said the students in her class all helped put the bird sanctuary together, by helping to place the bird feeders and planting the shrubs. The sanctuary attracts the birds that live in this environment and they have been keep track of the many different birds they’ve seen come visit.

The students do truly get excited to see the birds fly into the sanctuary. As they were wrapping up their bird museum experience by writing in their journals later that morning, they suddenly all jumped up to get a closer look out the window as a Blue Jay flew into the sanctuary.  

Bird study will continue in the fall as Dubofsky earned a second grant, this time in the amount of $6,000, which will be used towards next year’s project entitled “How Sweet It Is – Come Fly With Me” which will include a hummingbird component.