FIRST GRADERS HATCH CHICKS

The last week of March 2008, three CCS classrooms participated in the 4-H Embryology Project "Hatching Chicks in the Classroom.  On Monday morning incubators containing a dozen chicken eggs in the final stage of development arrived in our classrooms.  As early as Tuesday morning some classes had baby chicks!

In first grade, our first chick arrived during the day Tuesday.  During our annual Showcase/Open House Tuesday evening, we had the great pleasure of watching a second chick peck and wiggle his way out of his shell.  We had several eggs with cracks by the time we went home Tuesday night and by Wednesday after school we had a total of six chicks!  We had one chick hatch on Wednesday, but unfortunately that little chick didn't survive.

We spent the week enjoying our babies very much!  They were often noisy while we worked, but we didn't mind a bit.  Friday morning, since the six chicks were already so strong and healthy, we spent the first hour of the day on the floor playing with them and watching them eat and drink.

We named our chicks.  Maybe you can pick them out in the pictures below.  Shadow is the really fat black chick.  Spikey is the really fat yellow chick.  Ben Ten is a smaller black chick (he is really fiesty - doesn't like to be held and runs around all the time!).  Chirpy is the smallest chick - he is kind of yellow or tan in color, and chirps louder than any of the others!  Fuzzy and T. J. look a lot alike, so we can't really tell them apart - they are both black with some white on their wings.

We realized right away that, like each of us, each of our chicks has unique characteristics!  Some like to be held, others don't.  Some are always active, some are still and quiet.  Some eat a lot, some not so much.  Some are messy, some are neat.  Some are very social, others keep to themselves.  Like us, our chicks came in all sizes, shapes, colors and temperaments, and like us, they are all special!

Below are some pictures that we took along the way.  Click on any thumbnail to enlarge, then click the 'back' button on your browser to return to this page.

Close up photos of us holding our 'babies'.  We are so proud of them!

By the end of the week the chicks had grown and changed already.  We took them out of the box and played with them on the floor for a while. 

Kind of, in a round about way, our chicks even helped us with our math this week!  In honor of our chicks, one of our classmates brought in some candy eggs that we used to help us with our addition and subtraction facts.  (Now that we are adding and subtracting in the Eleven and Twelve Families, we don't have enough fingers, so the eggs were perfect practice for us!)

Thank you to Donna Taake, 4-H Youth Specialist, University of Missouri Extension, for setting this up for us each spring!