Observing nature: students hatch chickens in third grade classroom

Something is hatching in Mrs. Seward’s third grade classroom at NR-S. With a peep and a pip, chickens are breaking their way out of their shell, and the students couldn’t be more delighted.

“I’ve never seen a baby chicken before today!” exclaimed one student.

Seward made the decision this winter, when the ground was still frozen and the snow clouds billowed overhead, that she would put the incubator to use in the spring to hatch chicken eggs. It took a bit of planning on her part to find what kind of equipment would be needed and how long it would take to incubate the eggs.

Then, with the help of one of her students, she acquired a dozen fresh, potentially fertilized, unwashed eggs to place in the incubator for a total of 21 days.

Eggs don’t do much while they’re incubating. They just sit there. So it seems likely that the students would have lost interest in that time. But they didn’t.

Instead, Seward integrated the life-cycle of the chicken into the curriculum, allowing students the opportunity to gain an understanding of what was happening inside those eggs.

On Wednesday morning, the class came in to find two of the chicks had hatched in the night.

Later that afternoon, the third chick started to hatch, giving students the opportunity to witness the hatching process. “The students have just been amazed. So many of them have never been exposed to something like this,” Seward said.

As of 8 a.m. on Thursday, six of the 12 eggs had hatched, and other eggs were showing small cracks in the eggs or “pipping.”

The chickens will take up residence in the third grade classroom for another week or so, before they make their way back to the farmyard.