Oh, What a Surprise!

Spring is a time for new life and one of the ways we explored the miracle of life was by hatching chicks.  I got our eggs and an incubator from a local hatchery and brought them to the classroom one Monday morning.  Prior to bringing them in, I had only told the children that we were going to get 12 special visitors on Monday.  I explained that these visitors would be staying with us for a while but I wanted to keep who they were a surprise!  It was fun to hear the children guess who they might be!  It sure was a surprise when they found out that those visitors were 12 little white eggs.

We began with a discussion of what those little white things might be and what might happen and what might we be learning about now.  Then the children went in small groups to look at and listen to the eggs in the incubator.

Daily Observations

I have a morning and an afternoon kindergarten and each day I did observations with each group of children.  We did the observations on chart paper as a language experience.  This made it more than just a science activity but also a strong literacy activity.  We discussed:

-         what is an observation?

-         how can we use our 5 senses to observe the eggs (and later the chicks)?

-         how to spell different words by sounding them out

-         where we needed question marks on the page

-         how to organize our writing (i.e. should we put everything we see together and everything we hear together)

-         what words best described our observations

In addition to our written observations children were invited to make observational drawings of the eggs, incubator and chicks.  They were encouraged to use writing on their drawings.

Observations and Observational Drawings

So What Happens Inside the Egg?

I thought it would be interesting for the children to learn what happens inside that egg shell.  They knew that there were chicks inside but did they know how those chicks grew?

I searched the internet and found some pictures of embryo development.  I printed these and blew them up on the photocopier.  Then I colored them and mounted them on construction paper.  The addresses for these pictures are:

http://www.msstate.edu/dept/poultry/pics/embryo1.jpg

http://www.msstate.edu/dept/poultry/pics/embryo2.jpg

I asked the children what they thought happened inside the egg.  We discussed it for a while before I brought out the first picture of a 5-day old embryo. We looked at the size of the embryo and read all the labels.  We talked about how important it was to have the labels so that we knew what we were looking at.  One by one I brought out the other pictures and had the children hold them side by side.  With each new picture we discussed differences in the size of the embryo and the yolk sac, the albumen and the air sac.  We discussed how the embryo uses the yolk as its food to help it grow.  We mixed the posters up and tried to put them in sequential order and then I hung them up at the children’s eye level, near the incubator.  These posters became a focal point for discussions between the children.

I also found a great site that has a video showing the development of a chick embryo.  I showed this to the children and they found it very interesting.  The website is: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/odyssey/clips/.  This website also shows the development of human, pig and fish embryos.

Egg Dissections

          The children got be real biologists when we did our egg dissections.  In groups of 2 they were given a raw, unfertilized egg.  We discussed how these eggs did not have baby chicks growing inside of them.  Children were also given a plate to put the egg on and a magnifying glass to help them explore the eggs.  Prior to dissecting the eggs we talked about things the children would find.  We discussed yolk, albumen, air sac, and shell.  The children were given instructions to find those things, draw them, and label their drawings.  It was important to show how to label using arrows because this was a new idea for many children.

Life Cycle of a Chick

          Beyond actually watching the transformation of egg to chick and viewing the growth process of the embryo on the internet, we also explored the life cycle of a chick with other activities.  One such activity was reenacting the process our chicks took in the gym.  First the children made their bodies as small as they could and in tried to impersonate an egg shape.  They made their hands into beaks and pretended to peck at their imaginary shells.  Just as our chicks had to take breaks, so did they.  When they finally broke out of their shells they flopped down on the floor for a rest!  Then they experimented with walking around like a little chick and making chick sounds.  Slowly they grew bigger and bigger and the peeps turned into clucks and bocks!

          In the classroom we did a sequencing activity.  I had received a flyer from the hatchery which conveniently had sequential pictures of a chick hatching.  I cut out and mounted the pictures on sturdy paper.  The pictures were given to the children to sequence.  This made a nice activity for them to show their parents during our Demonstration of Learning which occurred during the project.

Puppet Plays

One of the stories we read was “Chicken Little.”  This is a great story for retelling because it has a predictable pattern and lots of characters for the children to act out.  It is also a good story to use for a rhyming lesson as the names of the characters all rhyme: Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, Drakey Lakey, Turkey Lurkey, and Foxy Loxy!  The children used stick puppets and put on play after play after play.  They found it fun to sometimes change the ending so that Foxy Loxy would not trick the other animals.  Of course, if you have never done puppet plays with the children, it requires some instruction.  We spent time planning who would be which character and I coached the children so that they could put on a play without having someone read the book at the same time.  It was very successful!  Puppets were made by copying pictures of the characters and taping them onto sticks (I used those big tongue depressors).

 Music and Movement

          Our chicks really seemed to enjoy their little spot right near our carpet.  All day long we taught them the ABCs and other important things.  However, when the little chicks appeared to be getting bored, we would entertain them with the bird dance!  I taught the children the actions to the dance and they had a blast performing for the chicks and each other.  Children spread out on the carpet and had to choose a partner.  They stood facing their partner to do the actions.  It is possible to get versions of the bird dance that go the same speed throughout and others that speed up at the end.  The children particularly enjoyed speeding up faster and faster and faster!