Egg-cellent and Egg-citing Eggs

By Mary Van Dyke

Last week we studied and built nests. This week we're onto eggs. I check the list of preschool students’ allergies for eggs, and bring in a hardboiled hen’s egg per student - and a few 'egg-stra'. I bring celery for anyone with an egg-allergy. I bring in model alabaster and plastic eggs, and some real blown eggs from a selection of birds.

We look at the models, and students bring up the topic of "what's real?". The stone eggs are "real" stone and "models" of real eggs. The blown eggs are "real" shells with a hole-drilled, and have the yolks and whites blown out. The intro sparks student interest and conversation.
Students have fun cracking the hard-boiled eggshells, peeling the eggs, cutting and chopping and mashing the whites and yolks. We look for the air-pocket, the membrane, albumen (white) and yellow yolk and learn about egg anatomy.

Students enjoy the freedom to create their own egg dish  - and then eat it! Do you prefer to slice the egg white and yolk, or to make boats, mash the yolk separately, or decorate your egg with capers? Do you like the entire egg, or just the yolk, or just the white? The egg is a nutritious snack with protein, vitamins and other nutrients.

The Quail's egg is speckled

At the end of the class, we gently make nests with hands and pass around the big Ostrich egg. It’s quite heavy, and has got a shiny dimpled texture. Then we circulate the tiny speckled Quail’s egg, the blue Araucana hen egg, and the very long white Embden Goose egg. I show pictures of the birds that lay these eggs.

Ostrich - from Wikimedia

IKEA layer puzzle showing egg to chick process

The preschool students ask lots of questions about eggs and chicks. I answer at age-appropriate level. We tell the story of a hen laying an egg and a chick hatching out with an old IKEA wooden layer puzzle.

Here are some newly-laid eggs from a friend's farm.

Fresh warm eggs

Check out the Five Reasons To Keep Chickens with drawings of a Rooster and Hens from A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies and Mark Hearld:... "5. Collecting eggs when they are still warm from under the hen is wonderful."

If you are working with older children, maybe one spring, you can incubate fertilized eggs and hatch chicks to give back to a local farmer? A 4-H Cooperative Extension office in your area might be hosting the Embryology Project? Or arrange to go visit a flock of laying hens, and maybe even gather a warm egg or two, at an educational farm near you?

Flock of laying hens
Whitehall Farm, Clifton, VA

Some resources for teaching about Eggs with pre-K and K

• Peterson Field Guide Eastern Birds’ Nests, 1998, by Hal Harrison
• A First Book of Nature, 2014, by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Mark Hearld - see page 52 Five Reasons To Keep Chickens
• BBC Countryfile greeting card collection - including Chickens in Apple Orchard

Blown eggs from selection of birds at Bracken Ridge Ranch.

• Ostrich egg
• Small speckled egg from a Pharoah Quail
• Lightly blue egg of an Araucana hen
• Long white egg from an Embden Goose.

Egg nutrition data, information and opinions on health benefits 

• Check various sources: the American Egg Board, nutritionfacts.org, nutritiondata.self.com and others. Protein, nutrient content is more clear,  than some of the health benefits that are still being debated.

Lesson Plans, Printable Bird and Egg Anatomy Images

• The American Egg Board's Egg-ucation Experts including Lesson Plans for preschool and up at http://www.aeb.org/educators/lesson-plans-and-materials
• Egg Anatomy Printable by Ann Treacy, 2013 Doodles and Jots,
• print onto card or 4 mm plastic paper and color and fold up
• diagram of egg anatomy cross-section
• Ostrich - from Wikimedia
• Quail - from LINK

Farm Field Trips in the NOVA Region
Educational farms with chickens include Arcadia Farm, Whitehall Farms and the Claude Moore Colonial Farm

Chickens in Apple Orchard
from Abacus Cards

Mary Van Dyke is Garden Teacher at Brooksfield School, McLean, Virginia

Nests and Dens with Preschoolers

By Mary Van Dyke

It is fun to study bird nests and build ‘nests or dens’ with preschoolers. Remember it is not legal to collect birds’ nests whether or not they are still being used (or reused) by birds. Over the years I have simply found one or two old Robin and Cardinal bird nests in cut-down trees or fallen on the ground. For show n' tell I bring last year's paperwasp nest, a log-cabin birdhouse as well as pine-needle baskets and acorn cap nests with clay eggs made by my daughter.

Water Vole Card, Robin's Nest, Log Cabin Birdhouse,
Acorn Cap Nest, Pineneedle Basket Nest, Paperwasp Nest

The preschoolers are interested to see the mud-building on a Robin nest and the oval nest-shape with wider breast-end and narrower tail-end. How did the parent birds make the nest? Can you imagine the parent birds (mostly the mother Robin) taking turns to sit on the eggs for two weeks or so while they keep their eggs warm in the nest until the baby birds hatch? It’s interesting to compare the Robin’s nest with the more loose arrangement of sticks in the Cardinal’s nest.

American Robin Nest with Eggs by L Birnbaum
from the Journey North American Robin website

Many twigs and small branches blew down in the school garden over the winter. We gather them up to tidy the grass. Why not build a larger nest or two together as a group for the stuffed animals and puppets: Squirrel, Cardinal, Robin, and Mouse?

Making a nest for all the animals

American Robin plush toy with sound

We gather together twigs and branches. With one group we decide to build individual animal nests, with other groups we discuss more and collectively design and build larger group-nests. One construction is two-story and has a roof. Maybe the children can build a nest-shelter-den that is large enough for them too? How about keeping warm and making a pretend camp-fire. 


While outside we listen to the birds singing spring songs. I see a crow fly over with a twig in its beak. Building nests and dens is wonderful empowering fun cooperative play and learning for children of all ages. Today's garden activity building nests and dens reminds me of the shrub-playhouses, sheet-tents, olive and apple tree-climbing days of my childhood!

Some resources, literature and art connections for teaching Nests and Dens with pre-K and K

• Peterson Field Guide Eastern Birds’ Nests, 1998, by Hal Harrison
• Collecting Old Birds Nests is Illegal by Bird Watcher’s General Store
• Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Wildlife Calendars
• from various years, take apart and laminate
• Squirrel puppet - Folkmanis American Grey Squirrel - LINK
• Cardinal Audubon plush bird with sound - LINK
• Robin Audubon plush bird with sound - LINK
• Journey North - American Robin project
• A First Book of Nature, 2014, by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Mark Hearld
• see page 58 Dens - and Things to do in your den
• BBC Springwatch greeting card collection
• including the Water Vole

Mary Van Dyke is Garden Teacher at Brooksfield School, McLean VA