Widening Life Experiences
“If children grow up not knowing about nature, and appreciating it, they will not understand it, they won’t protect it, and if they don’t protect it, who will?”
David Attenborough
Spring is the perfect time at Cygnets to learn about baby animals and continuing with our lifecycle theme our lickle peeps have participated in a chick-hatching project. We were treated to a wonderful surprise when our 8 eggs hatched and we were greeted by 8 little baby black chicks.
The children were fascinated as they witnessed the aftermath of the hatching and were very much like mother hens as they excitedly stopped play to check on their “babies”. The children were completely enraptured watching the chicks start to peck around and walk. The chicks seemed just as interested in the children, as they’d often come to the edge of their box to peep on the children.
Throughout the past week or so, the children have been able to learn all about hatching chicks and were very involved and excited by the process, counting down in anticipation to hatch day. To be honest – so was all the staff! Over the course of the waiting period, the children were able to observe the eggs in the incubator and learn about the cycle of life.
Each of our teachers incorporated many learning activities, related to lifecycles, role modelled, challenged, inspired them and it brought about some wonderful discussions and problem solving as well as given us the opportunity to introduce lots of new language. The children were also looking at lots of pictures of the different stages of the chicken’s life so they knew what to expect when they came out of the eggs and looking also at some non fiction books to find out more about what would happen. We talked about the importance of holding the chicks gently, to not drop them because they are babies and they could get hurt if we are rough. To keep our voices quiet and to move slowly so we don’t scare them. We also took so many photographs of the different stages of the hatching process of the chicks hatching and we screened it live on our big interactive screen so it happened right in front of our eyes!what rich language we have learnt. Watching the chicks hatch was a real, meaningful, and fun learning process for both teachers and our children alike. It exemplified our hands-on, experiential model of teaching that allowed our children to interact and experience their learning in a holistic environment. We hope our lickle peeps have walked away with a new understanding that they can learn a lot about the animals, plants, and other worldly things around them simply by observing and exploring. This fosters important scientific values, as well as a love of animals and a responsibility to care for our ecosystem.
This project has been an incredible valuable educational tool and we are sure our children will have great memories of this phenomenal learning experience for many years to come. For us, watching the eggs hatch into adorable little chicks felt symbolic, in a way, of the feeling we get as the end of the academic year is approaching, seeing the children blossom into such wonderful individuals. The children are all showing healthy signs of being ready for the next steps in their educational journey.
We read the story 'From Egg to Chick' which supported so much more language development. This also helped our children to understand that when a hatchling first comes out of the egg it doesn’t look anything like the ‘cute’ chicks they eventually become. It actually looked wet and quite scrawny. Immediately after hatching, the hatchlings also differ from each other as some were lively and others were completely exhausted and hardly moved. This did surprise some of our children and staff.
This kind of experience is very important for our children. Not only is it fantastically exciting and awe inspiring, but it also helped them to learn about the importance of living things and how to be kind and take care of them. It also helped the children to be aware of their own health and safety when we reinforced kind touching and hand washing.
