Teaching the chicken life cycle is probably one of my favorite units to teach! It's such a very versatile theme. You can teach it in the fall with your farm unit or during the spring in the middle of your life cycle units around Easter. There are also so many standards that can be taught during this unit.
Teaching the chicken life cycle in the fall is a little different than when I teach it in the spring. During the spring I usually teach the butterfly and the frog life cycle before focusing on the chicken life cycle, but in the fall, we're starting from scratch since we haven't ever gone over animal life cycles. That's why it's really important to be repetitive. The first thing I do is read an introductory book on the chicken life cycle, then I introduce the Life Cycle Posters. I point out all of the different stages of the life cycle.
Once the life cycle is introduced, I will let the kids explore the life cycle. I have a giant magnetic tray in my room. I put the Chicken Life Cycle Magnets on the side of the tray then I put the chicken portion of the Life Cycle Magnetic Activity Set up, and let the kids manipulate the pieces.
When I am teaching a unit, I include it in almost every aspect of my classroom. To draw in my art center, I add the Life Cycle Sticker Scene Assortment. What I like about this set is that it includes not only the chicken life cycle, but the frog, butterfly and plant life cycles as well. My kids love stickers, so I always jump on the opportunity to incorporate them into academic lessons!
One of our standards is having students sequence events. An easy way to introduce sequencing events is to allow them to manipulate life cycles. One of our centers focuses on the FlipChex- Life Cycles. This magnetic set allows them to work with butterfly, plant, frog and chicken life cycles. I like that this center is independent because it has a quick way for students to self-check their work.
One of my favorite parts of teaching the chicken life cycle is the egg incubation. You can read all about how I incubate eggs here. Each day while I'm incubating the eggs we cover up what the chicken looks like inside the egg on our Chicken Life Cycle Poster. You can download the Chicken Life Cycle Poster here. When I print it out, I print it like a poster and assemble it myself. You could also take it to your local printshop to make it into a poster.
I love teaching about various life cycles. You can see the article I wrote about the Frog Life Cycle here. Science is not hard to integrate into your day, and the best part is, kids love it and don't realize they're learning so much more!
