The Chicks Are Coming....

[Guest]

Hi folks

 

Just found out that our head has ordered some eggs to arrive the second week after half term, and will be here, and (hopefully hatching!) for two weeks.

This throws my plans out slightly, as it seems silly to continue with my planned topic when obviously this will take the children's interests.

 

So, I have two weeks of chick-ness to fill.

 

Does anyone have an ideas of activities/books I could use?

 

Thanks xxxx

[AnonyMouse_11396]

Sorry no ideas presently but how eggcellent for you all. :1b

[Guest tinkerbell]

We have eggs incubating at the moment.We have done this for a number of years and the children love the experience.

The eggs take 21 days to incubate so I have a big graph paper calendar all marked out and we cross the days off as a count down....hopefully they will hatch on the 19th March and we will have 2 weeks before we break up for Easter to watch the chicks grow.

Once they hatch we take them out of the incubator and put them into a place with a heat lamp...it is my dressing up box(we line it with plastic ,newspaper and shavings) and hang the heat lamp over the dressing up rail.I put a fire guard round it so the children don't touch the heat lamp.After a week we need chicken wire over the box because the chicks start to flutter!...i put a few toys in for the chicks eg little balls,something dangling down to peck

 

The children love to hold the chicks and we do let them when they are sitting down so the chicks don't startle the children so they are dropped!...little feet tickling hands...

they grow really quickly and spreading their wings you can see the wing feathers developing very quickly.

 

We do link the chicks to Easter /spring new life etc The little red hen

The RSPCA has a chicken topic sheet and I did work on the 5(?) freedoms what all hens are entitled to .

graph work ,tasting different eggs,scramble,poached,boiled etc

 

good luck

[AnonyMouse_33031]

We have just said goodbye to our chicks last friday after we had watched them hatch and develop over 10 days. First time we had done this but the children in pre-school and their parents thought it was wonderful. We got to know our parents better as they came into the setting and they struck up conversations with us about the language development that was occurring at home due to the chicks. We had visits from the local school. 60 children from nursery, 60 from reception, 60 from year 1 and 63 from year four all came to pay us a visit to see our chicks over the 10 days. Very good for building relationships with the school. We got our eggs from living eggs. Try their web site www.livingeggs.co.uk as I'm sure they have full planning for EYFS and KS1 on there. Enjoy and I will warn you it is very quiet when they leave.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Miacat3

[Guest]

This sounds brilliant. I have hatched duck eggs at home before and would love to do it with the children. Just one question - what do you do with the chicks once they have hatched?

[Guest]

We have eggs as well. We have the 'chick lady' coming on Friday to see if there are chicks inside! It's very exciting to watch one hatch. Last year most hatched after the children had gone home <_< but we managed to video one of them.

The children did love holding them and it was only one of the teachers who dropped one!!

[Guest]

What does the chick lady do? Is it called candling?

[Guest]

It is called candling. I'm not quite sure how it works, last year she came in to show the F1 children (as the incubator is in their room) but the teacher said it went a bit over their heads so she is going to do it with the F2 classes. They might recall the experience from last year but I think they will gain more from it this year. They are an inqisitive bunch!

Will let you know tomorrow!

[Guest]

Thanks folk, some nice ideas there. They are coming as a whole school think but now i want them in our classroom! Along with our snails, caterpillars and fish.....

:1b

[AnonyMouse_18910]

We have had 11 chicks hatch so far, 7 more to go.....it's been a fantastic day. I'm having trouble attaching a photo, I'll try from my school pc tomorrow.

[Guest]

We had 8 hatch out of 17 eggs by the last day of term. The 'chick ladies' were confident that the others would hatch back at the farm. We had 4 yellow chicks and 4 black chicks in the end. The kids loved watching them hatch and even one little boy with suspected ASD wanted to have a hold in the end!

[Guest]

This sounds great (resisted the urge to say eggcellent). Where do you get them from?

[Guest]

I'm not sure where ours come from. Our office manager sorts it for us at school, but I'm sure they must come from somewhere pretty local to us in Leicester.

[Guest]

The company we used was called Living Eggs - they were brilliant. Everything delivered and chicks picked up after two weeks, a 24 hour helpline (!) and even some planning resources.