I Heart Crafty Things

Life Cycle of a Chicken

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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HOW TO MAKE A LIFE CYCLE OF A CHICKEN CRAFT

Supplies you will need:

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.

5. To keep it simple, I also used another oval egg shape to make our baby chick. My son colored it yellow and glued it on the poster board. Then he added the googly eyes, and a small orange diamond, folded in half for the beak.  My son colored on the feet with a marker and I added the wings with a black marker. As an alternative you could also make a handprint chick with yellow paint.

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:

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Comments

  4. Anonymous says

    September 19, 2011 at 11:22 AM

    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!

    Reply

  6. Esther says

    September 19, 2011 at 2:40 PM

    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

    Reply

  7. Big D and Me says

    September 19, 2011 at 4:25 PM

    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

    Reply

  10. Aimee from Classified: Mom says

    September 21, 2011 at 1:51 AM

    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.

    Reply

  11. Michelle says

    September 21, 2011 at 2:10 PM

    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)

    Reply

  18. Storytime Fun says

    April 30, 2012 at 11:08 PM

    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

    Reply

  20. Carla at Preschool Powol Packets says

    August 18, 2012 at 2:52 PM

    I love this craft! I'm featuring it today on my Sharing Saturday post–all about Birds!

    Reply

  21. MommyHood says

    July 9, 2013 at 7:20 AM

    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 !

    Reply

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