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HOW TO MAKE A LIFE CYCLE OF A CHICKEN CRAFT
Supplies you will need:
- poster board
- white and orange cardstock paper
- shredded brown paper
- black, orange, yellow and red marker
- googly eyes
- washable red tempera paint (We received ours from our friends at Craftprojectideas.com and you can find some at your local Walmart.)
- glue
Directions:
1. Start by cutting an egg shape out of a piece of poster board. Then I printed out a little rectangle label from the computer that said, “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.
2. 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. After the nest was complete, I cut a small oval shape out of paper and my son glued it into the nest. If preschoolers are able to cut themselves, have them do the cutting.
4. 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.
6. 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. 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!
Here are some books we read before making this project:
- Birds (DK Eye Wonder Series)
- Five Little Chickens by Nancy Tafuri
- The Perfect Nest by Catherine Friend
You might also enjoy these crafts:
- Hatching Chick Craft
- Paper Bag Frog Puppet
- Apple Print Butterflies
- Tissue Paper Ladybug Craft
- Balloon Print Chick Craft
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LOVE IT!!!!!!!
What a fun craft, and that handprint chicken is adorable!
Love it! You could have even done a handprint chick like this one http://designsbya.blogspot.com/2009/08/april-handprint-and-thumbprint-chicks.html
That is so very cute! I love it! (Though I couldn't resist thinking there should have been a fifth stage, representing chicken soup or fried chicken, lol.)
We got baby chicks this year, and they have just started laying eggs! No roosters, so no more chicks on the way, just lots of eggs eggs eggs!
Stumbled upon your blog. Love it! We have much in common. Will be telling my friends.
Cheryl
http://www.cherylbastian.com
http://www.cherylbastian.blogspot.com
Wow! Love it! All the stages of the life cycle are adorable! Love the cracking egg!
You are so creative and the end result of the crafts are so beautiful
So cute – hey, how about you get a few chicks at your house so you can really learn about birds (he he). Something about which birds live in your area would be fun too
This is just adorable…so fun and so educational too. 🙂 Pinning!
Wow! This looks great… came to you via Paint On The Ceiling. Now following! 🙂
That is so adorable- the life stages of a chick? I have to say that I have never come across a craft like this! Great work and Thank you for sharing this on The Sunday Showcase.
This is adorable, I would have loved this when I hatched chicks with my 1st graders! Now Emily and Juliette will get to make it :0)
ADORABLE craft! Love love love it! Every stage of it!
Thank you for joining in at Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
This is such a cute project! I love it and will have to try it with my kids one day soon.
Simply precious!
Great craft!!!!
I'm so glad I found your site. You have wonderful ideas.
Linda
A Teachers Touch
I LOVE your blog. I'm a new follower and am super pumped to use your ideas in my kindergarten class. Especially this little chick life cycle…totally goes along with my chick hatching journal and other activities I posted. Thank you!
Little Miss Glamour Goes to Kindergarten
Hi! I found your blog post while looking for baby chick ideas for a storytime at my library. I love your craft! Wish I had time to do this at my weekly storytime ~ ah well, maybe at my 2 hr program in the summer…
I have a Blog Hop on my blog right now that is all about eggs and chicks. I would like to invite you to link your post to my Eggs and Chicks ABC’S Blog Hop. The ABC’S stands for Activities, Books, Crafts, and Snacks which are all things I share on my site for parents of young children. I think your post would fit right in with several areas, don’t you?
Here is the link to my blog hop post: http://librarystorytimeabcs.blogspot.com/2012/04/eggs-and-chicks-abcs-blog-hop.html
I hope you will stop by to visit and link up with us!
K @ Storytime Fun
This is adorable! I would for you to link it to Read.Explore.Learn on Friday!
I love this craft! I'm featuring it today on my Sharing Saturday post–all about Birds!
I'm going to do this with my daughter tomorrow we've talked about the life cycle of chickens while reading books about chicks. I wish I had found this craft at the time but it still works out nicely because we are actually going to an agriculture center in 2 days where there will be chicks. So excited !
What a great idea…pinning it and using it with my homeschooled kids. Thanks a bunch!
My daughter and myself enjoyed doing this project