"Inside the egg is the baby chick." (Christian). "The baby chick is called an embryo." (Logan). "The egg has to rotate in the incubator because the chick will die if it does not." (Jackson). "The embryo eats the yoke inside the egg." (Arianna). "The blood vessels help the baby chick breathe and eat." (Daniel). "It takes 21 days for the chick to hatch." (Adam).
Around day 16, we got to take a look inside the eggs. Mrs. Deaton got an overhead projector and we used the light to look inside the egg. We put the egg on top of a box with a hole in it. The light shined up so we could see inside the egg. "We saw the chick. We also saw some blood vessels. It was really gross and cool." (Caroline).
After 21 days, we knew the baby chicks would start to hatch. We were so excited!!! As soon as the chick is ready to come out of the egg, it starts to hatch. "The chick has an egg tooth. The egg tooth helps the chick poke a hole for him to get out. It takes a very long time." (Lily) "The egg tooth will fall off after a few days." (Caroline) Finally, the chick will come out. "The chick cracks the egg and then comes out." (Ritesh) "After the chicks hatch, they are exhausted. They rest. The baby chicks are covered in down. Down is the baby's feathers. The down is very wet and soggy. It will dry though." (Adriyana). After the chick hatches, we move it into a big box. We have a heat lamp to keep the chicks warm. We don't want the chicks to get too cold.
The best part comes next. We got to hold and play with our new baby chicks! Even though we wished we would have had a LOT of chicks, we were happy that four baby chicks hatched. We named them Sunny, Sherry, Chirpy and Hope. "Hope was sick when she was born. We put her in a smaller box so the other chicks wouldn't fight her." (Jarett). After one day, we got to move Hope into the regular box with the other chicks. She seems to be very healthy now and loves to be with the other chicks. All of our chicks are so sweet and very cute. "They are yellow and really fluffy and soft." (Addison). "We feed our chicks chicken food to make them healthy. We also give them water to drink." Kevin. As the chicks grow up, they will start to get feathers and will get bigger and bigger. "Two of our chicks are getting their feathers now." (Ivan).
We are so happy that we have baby chicks in our classroom. We are the luckiest Kindergarten class ever! "We love the chicks because they are so fluffy and warm." (Gigi). They are the cutest chicks ever! We are a little bit sad today because Mrs. Deaton has to take the chicks back to the farmer. Our Spring Break starts tomorrow so no one will be here at school to take care of the chicks. Mrs. Deaton is going to take them to the farmer this afternoon. We will miss them so much!!
This is Hope!!
