Science, graphic pics of our smbryology lesson, not for faint of heart

Quail_Antwerp

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We are making up our science lessons as we go along. Mostly because I have had the hardest time finding Science books, but partly because we are right now studying alot of what my kids are actually interested in.

Right now, that's chickens.

So we are studying embryology, and the science of hatching eggs. Each child has their own egg in the 'bator.

Now I have some of my own in there, too.

Today was day 7, and we candled the eggs. I took each kid with their egg into the bathroom (darkest room of the house) and had them point to the air cell, veins, and to explain in their words if they could see a chick or not. The squeals of excitement when they saw their chick moving around was so much fun!!

After candling their egg I gave them a sheet of paper that I had drawn an egg on. They then had to draw what they saw when we candled the eggs, including the aircell, and label the parts. (i.e. air cell, veining, chick) They were so excited about this part of it!

I went on to candle the frizzle eggs of mine and found one with an obvious blood ring. I could see no signs of life, and the veining was nothing like in their eggs where the chicks were swimming around.

I saw an opportunity for a visual aid of an undeveloped chick. Yup, I cracked that egg open! It had obviously died around day 4 or 5.

The kids were very fascinated seeing a chick embryo. I was fascinated to see it was encased in a "bag of water" much like a human baby is. We could also see where the chick feeds from the yolk. My kids were so thrilled with this. They turned their egg drawings over and drew a picture of what the embryo looked like.

Now I took pics, of both the egg during candling, front and back of the embryo, and what the embryo looked like with all the water and yolk rinsed off.

Would anyone like to see the pictures?

This is the egg. You can see the blood ring to the right. This is after 7 days of incubation.
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Picture of what the inside of the egg looked like after I opened it.
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The rest of the pictures are of the embryo.
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Woodland Woman

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We would love to see the pictures. I did something similar 2 months ago. We candled eggs and one obviously had died so we cracked it open to see the embryo. After the hatching was over we had 2 eggs that hadn't hatched so we opened them also to see why. One hadn't absorbed the insides and we couldn't see anything wrong with the other. It was interesting for them and I think it's good for kids to see that side of things sometimes.
 

Quail_Antwerp

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Ok, I will work on getting the pics loaded, and yes, Ann, I will edit the title! ;)
 

Quail_Antwerp

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Thank you!

I think the highlight of the lesson was that ALL of my kids, except the new baby, could get in on this. My five and three year old were just thrilled! And they both drew their own depiction of their chick in the egg.

My 3 year old was very enthused with looking at the embryo. He insisted on drawing several pictures and having me label them as "live chick" or "dead chick".

Then this evening, right before bed, he ran up to his daddy, who had missed the lesson by being out helping HIS dad, and told him all about the "live and dead chicks we looked at today." He even gave a detailed description about looking at his egg and seeing the chick swimming and said "I drew it's picture". I asked him what did we see in the second egg? And he looked at his dad and said, "Another chick and it was dead." His dad asked what did you do with the dead chick and I nearly fell on the floor when he said "Cracked it open to look at it!"

:th

He's only THREE!!! This was literally his first science lesson, and I was just so shocked that he could remember it nearly five hours later and describe it in detail to his dad!!
 

country freedom

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Wow!! Wonderful Biology lesson!!
I didn't even know birds were in a sack of water. Cool!! :cool:
 

scrambledmess

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Great lesson! AWesome pictures! You may have just created a biologist ;)
 

Quail_Antwerp

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Today was day 14, so they candled their eggs again. We had another dud, died sometime after the last candling, but I was kind of expecting it from the way it looked last week.

Yes, we broke it open, too and I took a couple pics. I was in a hurry to get this one outta the house as it smelled bad, tho, so not as detailed pics as last time :lol:

I haven't loaded them yet, but I will and I will post them too. I will also try to find the time to scan in the pics the kids have drew of their chicks.

Friday we will set them in the hatcher. Monday, Oct. 27 is the estimated due to hatch date.

On a side note, my husband says after all the eggs I currently have in the 'bator, no more hatching until spring....I have 40+ in there lolol
 

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