Image Jo Freitag
Put your hand up if you think things feel a bit strange and different at the moment!
Tweet and Retweet are feeling a bit disrupted and unsettled at the moment too.
For one thing the Great Migrations have been cancelled or maybe deferred till later this year. Most Twitter birds work for Twitter so they are working from home if possible. And because so many people want to use Twitter to stay connected the Tweet is busier than ever.
Retweet is also busier than ever. She has two extra occupants of the nest at the moment. One is little Pippin Tweet, Retweet’s nephew, who came for a holiday and then could not go home because his parents were feeling a bit seedy and did not know whether it was anything serious. So just to be safe Pippin stayed on with the Tweets.
And Great Aunt Hashtag came for a visit and then was not able to return to her home because at her advanced age she was considered a flight risk.
So Retweet is trying to keep everyone happy and maintain harmony in the nest at the same time as juggling different dietary requirements. And it seemed that Pippin was used to eating a lot more sugary foods than she liked her tweetlets to have.
Great Aunt Hashtag has been complaining because her Beetle Confectionery Cooking class has been cancelled. Also, because everyone was hoarding, supplies were so limited that she was not able to get any desiccated Christmas beetles.
Image Jo Freitag
This is a photo of Great Aunt Hashtag at her Beetle Confectionery Cooking class last year.
You can see that they would not be able to manage social distancing and that if they were cooking together they would be in danger of passing germs to each other. So it was a good thing that the class was cancelled but Great Aunt Hashtag was still disgruntled and grumbling.
Retweet has been trying to cheer up Great Aunt Hashtag and keep Tweetil, Tweetelle and Pippin occupied; so that they would not annoy her. But she has been missing the regular times she used to catch up with other families doing Nest Ed. This is how she has been talking to the family in the tree next door lately.
Image Jo Freitag
Then she had the bright idea to send messages by displaying flags in her tree
Image Jo Freitag
Retweet has been trying to ensure that their Nest Ed studies continued as usual. But at the same time as she was teaching her tweetlets about aerodynamics and meteorology she had to teach Pippin the very basic Flight 101 lesson Flap, Flap, Flap.
And everything felt so different!
On Wednesday Tweetelle said “I do not want to learn about avian anatomy today! It just does NOT feel like Wednesday!”
And Retweet knew exactly how she felt.
“What day do you think it is?” she asked.
“Wrens day!” Tweetelle answered “I want to paint wrens today.”
“What sort of day do you think it is, Tweetil?” she asked.
“Kite day!” said Tweetil. “I want to fly my kite”
She was very glad that doing Nest Ed allowed her to be flexible. She could see that she would be able to include avian anatomy teaching with Tweetelle’s wren painting and aerodynamics with Tweetil’s kite flying.
And then Pippin piped up “I want Lollipop day!”
Some things to ponder and some possible activities.
1. Are there any big words in the story you did not understand that you could investigate?
2. Great Aunt Hashtag is a glass half empty kind of old bird. She is fretting about what she does not have. How could you help her to notice all the things she does have and be grateful?
3. Would you like to rename one day this week and do an activity which you enjoy?
You could tell us about it next week!
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