A Chick Chick here and a Chick Chick there!

Today was a day of baby animals!  Thank you to Sherri , Angus's mom-for bringing in their 4 week old chicks.  Everyone got to hold them and pet them.  At circle time we spent a lot of time talking about what we knew already about chickens.  Responses were "they lay eggs"  and "they have feathers."  Angus knew a lot about chickens and told us about their down (feathers before they get adult feathers) and how they change and grow. Then we learned some new facts about chickens.  The chickens that lay eggs are all girls. (we went over male and female too) They are also called hens.  The males are roosters.  Some of the kids knew about roosters already.  Matilda mentioned that you can eat the eggs if it isn't too close for the baby chickens to be born.  So we tried to clear that up a bit as well!

 

We spent some time hypothesizing whether the new baby chicks in the farm office would be smaller or bigger than the ones Angus brought in.  Everyone agreed that they would be smaller.



Handing off the 4 week old chick to a child.  Wings flapping!

The 1 week old chicks for the farm.

After everyone got a chance to talk, we sang the standard "Old MacDonald."  The kids had fun making the animal noises.

Before we could go into see the baby chicks we went over the rules on how to act around animals.  Hands were raised and people said, use quiet voices, no running around.  So we practiced how to be quiet and still.  Everyone was able to do this for 10 seconds!

We filed into the farm office and gathered in a circle around the chick cage.  Everyone put pretend glue on their hands and put their hands at their sides so they weren't poking them into the cage.  We got a long chance to really observe the chicks.  We noticed what they ate and drank.  What their poop looked like and how they scratched the bottom of their cage with their feet.  We also counted their toes and claws and found they had 4.  We are really wondering what they will look like when we come back to TOP in 2 weeks!

There are also 2 baby bunnies in the farm office.  We were able to get out Herbert the Flemish Giant Rabbit.  He was very relaxed and everyone got to pet him on his back. There is also a new 6 week old female bunny.  They will both have have grown a lot when we come back!

 





Going off trail!

After all of that time with the animals, we needed to MOVE!  So we played red light/green light and each child got a chance to call out "Green light! Red Light or Yellow Light!"  What a great game to get kids to listen to directions and to learn how to respond with their bodies accordingly!

Learning how to be careful with sticks on the trail.

After lunch there was still time for a hike.  Blue group went off trail in the woods and even jumped over the stream.  The yellow group played baby owls for a bit then decided to carry walking sticks on the rest of our hike.  Sticks are usually off limits while we are hiking but today we made rules about hiking with sticks (Keep the stick on the ground.  No waving of the stick in the air.  No running with the stick.) and everyone had fun with their walking stick.

We hope The Outdoor Preschool kids have a great time during spring break!  We will miss them!
We'll see you back at TOP on April 23rd and then we'll get to see how much the rabbits and chickens have grown!