-Press Release, Vance County Schools

Four weeks ago second graders and their teachers at Dabney Elementary School welcomed chicken eggs into their classrooms. Now, they have baby chicks hopping around in their incubator containers.

The learning experience has been a great one for the students and a truly collaborative effort among the four second-grade teachers.

Second-grade teacher Kerianne Owen began the project and got her colleagues, Kimberly Holtzmann, Trish Burroughs and Ellen Harris, to join in. The eggs were donated by a local farmer and the project was sponsored through the Vance County 4-H, with lots of help from Lina Lue, the local agricultural extension agent.

The students can easily answer questions about the process, including how they rotated the eggs three times a day for 21 days and made sure the eggs were always kept warm in the incubators. They can discuss how the chicks made their way out of their eggs and how they have changed in the few days since they hatched.

The chicks’ journey at Dabney Elementary is coming to an end. This week, they will be taken home by Owen and Holtzmann, who plan to raise them on their farms.

“The children have been so excited through this whole process,” Owen said. “Each day, they would come into the classroom and go over to the incubator to say hello to the chicks, even when they were still inside their eggs. Once we saw them starting to peck their way out of their shells, the students’ enthusiasm really went up.”

“This has been an amazing learning experience for our students,” Holtzmann added. “We as teachers have learned, also. It was quite a bit of work to care for the eggs, make sure they were turned enough times each day and kept warm enough. Now that they are out of their shells, the children have learned how to feed them and give them water.”

Of course, the students have given all of the chicks names. They’ve watched them go from “wet gooey messes” as one student described as they hatched, to now “furry” cute things ranging in color from dark brown to yellow.

The students say they will be sad to see the chicks leave their classrooms, but they’re looking forward to Owen and Holtzmann sharing pictures of the chicks as they grow into adult chickens.

Kerianne Owen, a second-grade teacher at Dabney Elementary, watches with four of her students as nine baby chicks move around in the incubator in her classroom. (Photo courtesy VCS)

Kimberly Holtzmann holds one of the 10 baby chicks in her classroom as some of her second graders take turns petting the chick. (Photo courtesy VCS)