it's all about the chicks

Something I was doing on my other blog before I started writing here was to post weekly about what we're working on with homeschooling, which books we were reading, etc. I would like to try to continue that tradition here. We generally base our homeschooling week around a basic theme -- I (or occasionally the kids) choose a topic and then select some books/stories to support that topic, and then choose activities that go along with the theme. Some weeks have more specific topics (like this week), some are more general (like "spring").

This week it's all about the chicks.

So the first photo is our chicks as of today. They're about a week old, have "real" feathers on their wings and tails, but still are covered with soft fuzzy red down on the rest of their bodies and heads. They're already twice the size they were when I brought them home 4 days ago. They need a heat lamp (producing that reddish glow behind them) to keep them warm, and between that and the fact they they need to be draft-free for the next 6 weeks or so, our laundry room (which is where they are currently living) is a fairly stuffy, uncomfortable place to be right now. So our visits to see them are breif, but frequent -- Zoo Boy likes to check on them several times a day to make sure they have fresh food and water, and to count them and make sure they are all there. In a more natural setting, their mother would keep them warm by "brooding" them under her wings/body.
One of the books we're reading this week is Where Do Chicks Come From?, by Amy E. Sklansky, illustrated by Pam Paparone. This is one of the Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Science series. (In this photo, the boys are putting on a bit of a play about the development of a chick inside the egg, based on the illustrations of the book -- something they very much enjoy doing with our books.) For the most part I like the series because the Stage 1 books are geared towards preschoolers and kindergarteners, so the material is easily understandable by my kids, and there are fun activity/experiment suggestions at the end of the story that are also quite age-appropriate. There is a LOT of information provided in these books, which is both a blessing and a curse. I like it because it answers questions about the world and the way things work, and my kids always have tons of questions, so that makes my job of finding answer pretty easy. I dislike it because there is no sense of wonder or imagination in these books -- pretty much a just-the-facts-ma'am sort of thing. So when we read one of these books, I make sure we balance it with a more fanciful book on the same topic. In this case, that book is Daisy Comes Home, by Jan Brett (my favorite children's Author/Illustrator). This story has everything I love about Jan's books -- an enchanting tale with a bit of a moral, set in an exotic land (China in this case), with plenty of local culture, and lush illustrations. A definite must-read (and a book I very much would like to add to our own personal library).

Since I couldn't find any other chicken-related books that I liked, I chose as our third book (we always read 3 books every evening during our Family Story Time before bed) Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs, by Linda Ashman, illustrated by Lauren Stringer. It's a lovely rhyme about the homes that various animals have, and I tied it into the chick theme by discussing chicken homes (coops). We've been having as much coop fun this week as we've been having chicken fun. The kids have also used the illustrations in this book as a springboard for pretend play and acting out skits about various kinds of animal homes.
Speaking of which, here's J at the chicken coop at the children's museum yesterday, playing a game of find-the-egg by reaching under the chickens. This nest box system is a lot fancier than the one we have in our real-life chicken coop -- ours is a homemade row of wooden boxes. And generally we don't have to actually reach under chickens to collect the eggs -- usually our chickens just lay their eggs and go back to ranging about the farm. Regardless, collecting the eggs is always one of my kids' favorite chores to do here on our farm.

Also at the museum yesterday, Zoo Boy dressed up like a chicken when he visited the coop. He pretended to be a hen looking for a nest box to lay his egg in. He let out a pretty convincing "ba-GUCK!" as he layed his imaginary egg, too!

Other chicken activities planned for this week: An experiment to discover why a hen doesn't break an egg when she sits on it -- the darned things are pretty strong, so strong in fact that you can't break it when squeezing it (when held in the palm of your hand and squeezed with the same hand). Egg races (rolling hard-boiled eggs with your nose across the room -- it's impossible to roll an egg straight!). Cooking eggs by various methods (and exploring the anatomy of an egg at the same time). Dyeing hardboiled eggs, using crayons to draw a design first. And as a special treat on Friday Night (Family Movie Night), we'll rent Chicken Little. I'm sure other thing will come up as we go along too -- they always do!