Upon return from spring break, third grade had the opportunity to incubate 22 chicken eggs. It was an extremely exciting journey! Chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch so third graders had to exercise their patients for 21 days! Each day as they waited, they marked the chick's progress on a timeline, viewing the various stages of development. Every couple of days, the kids candled one specific egg. They used the same egg each time. It was very exciting to watch going from very clear liquid to seeing darkness in the egg and then seeing almost complete darkness with a very tiny amount of clear liquid which they learned was the air sack. The eggs were supposed to begin hatching on the 15th of April.
When the students arrived on the 15th, they were surprised to find 2 chicks had actually hatched the Friday before! Third grade had excitement overload! On the 15th, one chick hatched and then overnight, 9 more hatched. Once all the hatching was done, there were a total of 15 chicks. Third grade got to experience watching one chick completely hatch out of the egg. As the chick made its debut, it was greeted with cheers and clapping and pure excitement. What a great way to enter the world! Each student got to name a chick. Some of the names were Oreo, Snowball and Blake Jr.! The first chick that hatched had a definitive dark mohawk on his yellow head and of course the only name for him was Patrick Mahomes!
The class agreed that their least favorite part was waiting 21 days and then saying goodbye! The chicks will be returned to their farm from which they came. "I loved watching them crack the shell and then work hard to get free!" exclaimed Ella Joe. Overall this was one of 3rd grade's favorite activities in class this year.