My preschooler and I are having fun learning about birds this week. We started by reading some books about birds and we made this “Life Cycle of a Chicken” craft. I saw the idea in The Mailbox Magazine a while back and I just love how it turned out. Find a list of the books we read to go along with this activity at the bottom of this post.
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Supplies you will need for this Craft
- poster board
- white and orange cardstock paper
- shredded brown paper
- black, orange, yellow and red marker
- googly eyes
- washable red tempera paint (you can find some at your local Walmart.)
- glue
Step-By-Step Guide on How to make a Lifestyle of a Chicken Craft
Step 1: Cut out an egg shape base
Start by cutting an egg shape out of a piece of poster board. Then I printed out a little rectangle label from the computer with the text that says “Life Cycle of a Chicken” and we glued it to the center. You can also just write Life Cycle of a Chicken with your black marker in the center of the poster.
Step 2: Make a nest
At the top of the egg we talked about how chickens start out as an egg. Then we made a little nest by putting glue all over and adding shredded pieces of brown paper.
3. Cut out a smaller egg
After the nest was complete, I cut a small oval shape out of paper and my son glued it into the nest. If pre-schoolers are able to cut themselves, do the cutting for them.
4. Explain about the hatching egg
Then we discussed how the Mommy Chicken sits on her eggs to keep them at the right temperature, while the birds grow inside the egg. When they are all grown they begin to hatch out of the egg. I cut a larger egg out of paper and my son glued it to the poster board. Then he drew a jagged edge circle on the egg to represent the egg hatching. My son colored the inside yellow and he added googly eyes to represent the chick inside.
5. Create a hen and the hatching egg
6. Make a grown chicken using handprint
Next, we made the grown chicken. I covered my son’s hand with our red tempera paint and he placed his hand on the poster board to make a handprint. After the paint was completely dry, my son glued on a googly eye and drew on the feet, beak and waddle. I added the outline of the wing with black marker.
7. Draw the lines to represent the stages of the cycle
To complete our chart, I simply drew arrows between each stage to show that it is an endless cycle and we talked about each stage one more time. It was such a fun project!
