Students in Camille Tutko’s and Kara Rolando’s kindergarten classes at Golden Hill Elementary learned about the life cycle of a chick egg while incorporating other related lessons surrounding vocabulary and empathy.
Tutko’s students were excited to see how the chick eggs hatched and watched them every day for 21 days in the incubator as they marked on their egg calendars if a crack was seen on any of the eggshells. During this time, they also learned new words like “yolk,” “blood vessels,” “hatch,” and “brooder box,” among others.
“During the 21 days of incubation, the children looked at photographs of the growth inside the egg daily,” Tutko said. “They waited patiently and then on days 21 and 22, ‘Crack!’ We got our first chicks.”
The first two chicks were named Oreo and Penguin by the students, perhaps because of their black and white down, or growth that helps them stay warm. Two more chicks hatched the following day with one charcoal gray chick named Smokey and the other was called Chipmunk because he was brown with stripes. The chicks’ birth spawned an important lesson.
“The children saw how wet the chicks were after they hatched and learned we couldn’t move them into the brooder box until they were dry and fluffy,” Tutko explained.
Over the next week, students observed how they lived in the brooder box together and learned that the chicks, like a person, need to be cared for daily by being given fresh food and water and provided with a clean living environment.
“They learned why marbles were put in their water dish (to prevent the chicks from drowning) and how the brooder box had to be cleaned out every day,” Tutko said. “The children also learned about empathy, as they had to be ever so gentle and kind around the chicks.”
In a week’s time, the chicks grew quickly and saying goodbye proved to be a bittersweet experience for everyone.
“It was sad for us to say goodbye but we knew they were going to a farm where they could run free, and continue to grow,” Tutko said.
A big thank you goes out to Cornell Cooperative Extension Orange County for providing the hatching chick unit materials.
