On Tuesday morning Lise-Anne and Anna helped to candle all of our chick eggs, inviting small groups of children to observe the egg with a bright flashlight pointed at the bottom - illuminating the egg. Kindergarteners noticed large, "white" circles inside of the eggs (the air sac) and small, dark "spots" within each egg. Anna helped to keep track of our findings, putting a check next to the eggs with a chick inside. Some of our thoughts about Anna's data and the experience;
TW - I notice there’s a question mark next to egg number 8, do we have a chick in that egg?
DM - I notice that a lot of them are in there!
KS - I’m surprised, because I thought the chicks would look different inside of the eggs.
We learned that 26 of our 27 eggs have a chick! We will check egg number 8 again next week. The Kindergarteners are very excited about the possibility of having 27 chicks in our classroom.
Measuring the Eggs
We revisited the children's question from last week - which egg is the biggest? Maeve recorded our seven possibilities - egg number 10, 16, 18, 19, 20, 24 and 26. We had discussed the different ways we could measure an egg, connecting our conversation to all of our previous work around measureable attributes.
On Thursday Lise-Anne joined us with her scale from home, taking the time to measure each egg the three different ways the Kindergarteners had recommended; length, how big around, and weight. While we used centimeters and ounces, recording official measurements and briefly talking about the decimal points, it was our graph that helped all of the children to visualize and understand our data. We talked about the parts of the graph, how to read it, and how to decide which egg is the biggest based on our information.
Looking at our three graphs, which egg is the biggest?
Two ideas;
Inez stated that egg number 26 is the longest and weighs the most, it is the biggest in two of our three categories. So, we should say it is the biggest.
Avery said we should take all of the measurements for each egg (length, circumference, and weight) and add them together. At the end, the egg with the greatest number should be the biggest egg.
We voted. The Kindergarteners excitedly decided to try Avery's idea - we have a lot of work to do during number corner on Monday!
Of course, combining numbers with decimals isn't part of Kindergarten curriculum, but we will use unifix cubes and what we know about grouping numbers to combine each measurement. Having chick eggs in our classroom has encouraged and provided authentic and meaningful questions, conversations, and investigations. As we move into our third week, we continue to learn from this rich experience, expanding on our work and developing deeper understandings!
cute
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