Chick It Out!!

My Cute Chick It Out Shirt

This is my second year participating in the “Chick It Out” program.  For those of you that are not familiar with the program, our local Farm bureau, University of Illinois Extension and Illinois Ag in The Classroom have partnered together to form a program called “Chick It Out”.  Teachers, Schools and homeschoolers can sign up to receive a dozen Chicken eggs, an incubator and chicken feed to take back to their school or home to have a hands on learning experience.  The kids love it!!

April 7 I went and picked up our dozen chicken eggs.  I still can’t get over they come like this!

I hooked up our incubator waited for the incubator temperature to get to 100.3 degrees and the humidity to stay between 45-55%.  It took about 24 hours.  I purchased an egg turner because the eggs were staying at the school and I am not there all day long to turn the eggs 3 times per day.

 

 

We talked a lot during the coming weeks about the eggs and how the babies are growing each day.  I wish we could have candled the eggs sooner, but trying to get all my curriculum in for the month, field trips and Mothers Tea we ran out of time. 

Friday we finally got the chance to do our complete lesson on the chicken life cycle!  We watched a short video (they are preschool, so we kept it very basic)  

It has a catchy tune and they got the general concept. Typically I use the overhead projector to candle, but the light was to dim so I used the flashlight on my phone. 

                                           

You can see the air sac at the top of the egg and the dark shadow, that is the baby chick.  You can also see the blood vessels.  

                                         

This is a better view of the blood vessels.

                                                      

This egg was different.  See how you can see through the egg and there are no visible blood vessels? That means that the egg is not fertile and there is no baby chick.  We ended up having 2 eggs like this, so now the egg count is down to 10.

I found this great Chicken Life Cycle Craft from TPT

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Chicken-Life-Cycle-3-D-Life-Cycle-of-a-Chicken-Craftivity-700180

The Life Cycle Sheet was easy for my PreK to follow along and understand the cycle.  We used the sheet to also put together this cute life cycle mobile craft.

 The eggs have been in the incubator for 20 days now.  Monday is their big day.  It is their Birthday Party!!  We all are very excited to see our little feathered friends it has been a LONG 21 days for my kiddos.