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Hatching eggs is an experience that children will remember for years to come. It encourages the importance of caring for living things that are vulnerable, as well as demonstrating life cycles and building their understanding of the difference between animals that lay eggs and animals that give birth to live young. The values that children learn from handling the chicks are in line with our school values of nurture and curiosity. Animal welfare is touched upon with older children.

The Living Egg project supports almost every area of the curriculum. It provides opportunities for rich language development and the acquisition of new vocabulary, such as egg tooth, incubate, brooding, fertilise, embryo. We got some great maths work from the project too, using laminated representations of chicks! We focussed on exploring the concepts of addition, subtraction, sharing and estimation.

The children learn what living things need to thrive and through daily observation, are exposed, first hand, to growth and changes over time. It helps the children to learn where their food comes from and the difference between an egg from the supermarket and a fertilised egg.

Handling the chicks and encouraging the children to take responsibility for their needs, promotes care and consideration for living things. We discussed the need for handwashing and good hygiene when we had finished handling the chicks. Listening skills were also honed and the need to share and to take turns when handling them. 

 

This is a project that we cannot wait to repeat next year.

Mrs Freestone