Egg-citing News!

What are they looking at under the bright light?

Egg-zactly! The wonderful world of kindergarten is home to some soon-to-be hatch-lings. So many creatures come from eggs. The creatures developing in our eggs are fancy chickens with great plumes of coloured tail feathers.

Ricki, our co-op student from Riverside High School brought in some very special eggs. Can you guess the kinds of birds that hatched from them?

The big white egg was from an ostrich, and the dark smaller egg was from an emu. Ricki shared the eggs and the story of how she got them. Then she helped the children to learn about the birds that hatched from them. Ostriches, emus and chickens have so much in common! They have feathers and beaks and wings... but don't really fly.

It all began when Mrs. St. Onge had brought out this strange looking container and plugged it in for a couple of days. We became more and more curious. She was making sure our new visitors had a warm place to go when they arrived. She called this container an incubator. It was nice and warm inside as we awaited the arrival of our eggs.

We learned all about eggs... cracking them, what's inside them, , why they needed to be warm, why they are different...

Then, in came Farmer Richard! Most often, he tends the Living Wall by our kindergarten rooms, but this day he had a special surprise for us. He had an egg carton with some very special eggs. They had writing on them so that we could tell which type of hen they came from. Some were small and some were larger. There were many curious eyes and children! We learned so much about chickens and their eggs.

Mrs. St. Onge worked with the children to make a calendar so we could count down the days until we might see the chickens begin to hatch. We watch them every day and cross the days off as they pass. We are expecting our chicks around April 14... give or take a day. You know how those young ones have a mind of their own!

Since then, we have looked at the eggs to see how well they are developing. We can only do this for a short time because they need to stay warm in the incubator. 

We have seen a tiny dot that is a heart. We knew this because there were veins travelling away from the dot. 

Looking at the embryo of an egg with a bright light is called candling. This name came from how people first used candle light to look at the inside of an egg. We have candled a couple of times. We are able to see how the embryo is growing!

Just like any expectant family, we are anxious and protective over the newest members to our kindergarten family!