Chicken Life Cycles

How I love spring!! I swear there is nothing better than spring in Kindergarten! They are reading, they are independent and we do a TON of Science!

When we come back from Spring Break we start life cycles, and start with frogs. But that week, we get our incubator out and get chicken eggs.

I let them keep an eye on them for about a week, continuing to teach about the frog life cycle, and feed their curiosity. They want to know what is in that box. What is it doing? What is going to come out of those eggs?! Why are you turning the eggs every day? They are just bouncing on their little bottoms on Monday when we start our Chicken Life Cycle unit.

We start off all of our life cycles with a KWL chart. By this time of the year the kids are champs at making these charts! On Tuesday I bring in the flashlight and some new books.

My kids LOVE the Gail Gibbons and Let’s Find out Books. We read them whenever there is a book for whatever theme we are on. However; these books do talk about fertilization and how the egg forms inside the hen. I just skip those pages. So Teacher Beware!

It is time to candle the eggs. (Excuse the fuzz it was a humid day!!) We look at every egg to see how many are on track to hatch. They think it is so cool to see the shadows inside the egg!

Then we get to the fun part. I crack two nonfertilized eggs. It is gah-ross! We talk about the shell, skin, yolk and albumen. Then I hang them up in the hallway.

They love learning about life cycles. I love hearing their little voices use big vocabulary. When they talk about embryos and oviparous animals, my teacher heart grows!

After we learn about the life cycle, we do an activity to reinforce them. Last year we made these cute little life cycles from Kindergarten Rocks:

Did I mention they were free?! So Cute!

Then we do some more waiting. Twenty-One days is a long time for Kindergarten.

Then it finally happens. They start hatching.

 

The kids beg me to hook up the iPad to the SmartBoard so they can watch the eggs hatch.

Not only do I have happy kids, but there is also a happy teacher!

This is truly a fun unit to teach! We love life cycles in kindergarten! We do almost a month of life cycles, a week of frog, chicken, butterflies, plants. Then we do two weeks of Insects, a bug a day, and talk about all those life cycles too!

Can’t wait to share those with you too!!

Mrs. Hoffer's Spot is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.