Oviparous Animal Life Cycles-{Day 2: All About Oviparous Animals}

Whew! Today was such a busy day full of learning. I am coming to the realization that I really enjoy teaching science related units, and I am loving everything about this week, but I sure am exhausted at the end of the day. 

We began our day by wrapping up our frog life cycles discussion, and here is how it went. 

We began by reviewing the frog life cycle by watching the Brain Pop Jr. video on Frogs. 

After refreshing our memories on the frog life cycle, we slightly changed gears and began talking about the differences between frogs and toads. I read a book I checked out from my local library called What's the Difference Between a Frog and a Toad? by Mary Firestone.

We followed the book up by watching a YouTube video on the differences between frogs and toads. You can check the video out by clicking here.

 After learning the difference between the two amphibians, we completed a Venn Diagram on the similarities and differences between frogs and toads. I think everyone did a great job on remembering what they had learned from the book and the video.

I added the Venn Diagram to our bulletin board with our adorable froggies we made yesterday. If you missed the post about this frog craftivity, you can check it out here.

We then wrote in our journals which one, a frog or a toad, we would rather have as a pet, and explained why. 

{I want a frog because it jumps so high.}

{I want a toad because it has bumps.}

{I want a frog because they are green.}

After we finished our frog activity, we began learning about what oviparous animals are. We read the book Chickens Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller and then sorted animals on whether they are oviparous or not. 

After sorting together as a whole class, we independently sorted animals into two groups based on if they are oviparous. I got this oviparous animals sort, and the animal picture cards above, from Khrys Bosland from Keepin' It Kool in Kinderland. {Psst, this activity is a FREEBIE in her store! Whoop, whoop! Thank you, Khrys!}

After we learned what oviparous animals are, we each chose an oviparous animal and worked on this oviparous animals writing craftivity. {I found this adorable activity on Cara Carroll's blog, The First Grade Parade and adapted it to our kindergarten needs.}

{A peacock is oviparous because it lays eggs.}

{A dinosaur is oviparous because it lays eggs.} (If I had known someone was going to choose a prehistoric animal, I would have made a past tense writing prompt. Oh well...)

{A flamingo is oviparous because it lays eggs.}

{A spider is oviparous because it lays eggs.}

{A penguin is oviparous because it lays eggs.}

Now that we know what oviparous animals are, we are ready to continue on with our unit. Tomorrow we will begin talking about the chicken life cycle. 

On Monday I went and picked up eighteen chick eggs for our kindergarten classes to hatch this week from my local hatchery.

 

As soon as my incubator was heated up to the perfect temperature, I placed my six eggs in and the wait began.

When we came into class this morning, we noticed that two of our eggs had cracks. One of the eggs continued to get a bigger crack throughout the day, which excited us all; however, the hatchery said we wouldn't begin to have any hatch until Wednesday, so I knew there wasn't going to be much more progress than just a crack. 

Before heading home, I allowed everyone to come over and observe the eggs one last time. We were all excited to notice that the egg with the bigger crack began to move when we were talking near the incubator, and we could even hear chirping from inside. Seriously, so cool! I got just as excited as my students. I just can't help it! 

I can't wait to share all of our chicken life cycle learning and the progression of our own chicks as they hatch and join our classroom. See ya tomorrow, friends!

Oviparous Animal Life Cycles-{Day 1: Frog Life Cycles}

Today we began our week long Oviparous Animal Life Cycles unit. This is always such an exciting unit because students get to witness some life cycles in the classroom, and that makes it an exciting unit for me to teach. 

We began our unit today by studying the life cycle of frogs. I opted to not have tadpoles in my classroom this year, mainly due to the smell of them, so I found some great videos on YouTube for my class to watch so they could see real pictures of the stages in the life cycle of a frog. Here are two videos that I showed.

{This first video is a short, quick reference to the stages in the frog life cycle. This kid does a great job of explaining the stages, and my class enjoyed that they were learning this from another kid. I even had some say they wanted to make videos like him when it was over.}


{This second video is long, but completely worth it. It doesn't miss a beat on the development of these frogs from their eggs.}

After we watched these two videos, we discussed the stages in the frog life cycle and made these fun and easy life cycle frogs. Click here to get this craftivity for yourself.

 Here is the finished product.

When you flip up the mouth, there are four tongue "pages" with a stage of the frog life cycle on each one.

Want this for your class? Click here to check it out in my TPT store.

Tomorrow we will continue on with talking about frogs. We will also begin talking about what oviparous animals are and will read the book Chicken Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller.