Ms. Samantha Battle, second grade teacher at Parker elementary school, wanted a science unit that supported the curriculum dictates for life cycles, engaged young students in ways that engendered care-giving and responsibility and which provided a multi-varied learning experience. For this, she wrote a Donors Choose grant for a chance to raise chickens. Ms. Burroughs, Mr. Messersmith and a former district teacher, Bettelynn Maranco, supported these efforts by compiling lesson plans, loaning incubators, and purchasing chickens and fertile eggs. Ms. Battle’s grant supplied a digital camera and a very sophisticated incubator for hatching eggs. Ms. Battle found that plastic tubs and bassinettes worked great for transporting and maintaining the chickens in her classroom.
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As expected, the children responded in wonderful ways to caring for and observing chicken behavior. Learning about chickens from egg formation to loss of pin feathers gave the children dozens of facts they could share and a brand new sense of how a living thing grows. As one teacher, Miriam Maldonado put it, “I’ll never look at chickens the same way again!” The chickens were initially marked and named; but with a short time, the children could tell them apart by personality alone. Other than everyone sneezing from the alfalfa bedding, the day to day care included gathering grass from outside, changing water and constant feeding. Guinea hens eat at lot! The children discovered what “pecking order” meant, knew which hen was the trouble maker; but that all of them liked being held and petted by warm hands. These pictures show the chickens enjoying their garden by the school where they hunted ladybugs, worms and tasty flowers.