NEWS RELEASE

Chantellese Shockley’s preschoolers at Mary G. Hogsett Primary School will soon be sharing their classroom with newly hatched chicks. The class is incubating chicken eggs and excitedly awaiting the week of May 3, when Shockley, known to her students as Ms. C, expects the eggs to hatch.

Right now, her students have to practice patience — they’ve waited for the eggs to develop veins and will learn about the life cycle of a chicken as it develops in its egg.

At Hogsett, there are many lessons about animals and the environment, and this isn’t the only time Shockley’s students have learned about life cycles.

“We did the caterpillar with ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar,’” Shockley said about another lesson. “They will learn about the baby chicks when they hatch, and what kind of chickens they are.”

The incubators and some of the warming lamps the class is using were donated by Bluegrass Greensource, a nonprofit organization that focuses on environmental education, and will be returned once they are no longer needed. A farmer donated all of the eggs. Bookkeeper Andrea Contini coordinated this effort.

Once the eggs hatch, either Shockley or Preschool Teacher Wendy Logan will take them home to keep.

Shockley is learning right alongside her students — she hasn’t raised chickens before, so this experience is new to her as well. Through this experience, she hopes her students learn what it is like to care for animals.

Last year, Hogsett hatched some quail eggs, another experience for the young children to experience what the beginning of life looks like for some animals.

“And they learn to be gentle, because it’s a baby,” Shockley said. “It’s really cool to watch them hatch because they don’t always know that either, that some animals come from eggs.”