Chick Study Day Two

This is going to be just a short input. Tired...just came back from Maundy Thursday service...and it is 130am...but hubby will be around the next few days so might not have much time to update...better do it now.


We didn't have time to really study on Wed but Den still get to spend 30 min or so playing with them. Today she played with them for about an hour and I asked her to pay more attention to their wings, eyes, ears, nose and beak. It was really amazing how much she observed by her self just by pointing her to the right direction.


We covered three lessons from the Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock....I learned so many new things today! To a point, I think homeschooling is to homeschool the mom and not the child!


Lesson 3: Wing:
- We experimenting with Umbrella to show how the overlapping wings feathers help chick fly;


- We talked about the function of chick's tail - act as rudder and also help to fly


Lesson 4: Eye and Ear
- We found their ears...we knew they have ears since Chicka Chicka and Boom Boom (their name) has been responding very well to Den's voice...come running to her whenever she calls...and they love music, whenever Den play piano, they will sing too...but we never knew where are the ears located...today we found them. ^^


- Den observed that chick has only lower eyelids.


- I saw the film lid that came out from the corner of chick's eyes and cover the eyes like a veil when they first arrived but I never knew what that was... today I learned....and found out even human has the film lid!! At the corner of our eyes near our nose, just that we can't move the film lid like chicks...any more...I need to find out what is the function of the film lid...Den and I guess - to protect the eyes.


- Chick cannot see the same object with both eyes at the same time


Lesson 5: Beak
-Found the nostrils!!


-Compare Duck bill and chick beak


-Functions of beak


-Chick has no teeth and not much sense of smell.




Den also identified different part of a chicken and color it:

While discussing, Den asked me a few interesting questions that I had no answer! But with the help of the internet, we have discovered:

1. The function of Comb and Wattles - (I thought they are just there for deco!!) is to cool down chicken's body temperature

2. How to tell the gender of bb chicks - the best way is to look inside the vent...which I am not going to do! So we settle with the latest way - tell by color of their feather - the lighter will be hen and thus we declare Chicka Chicka as a rooster and Boom Boom a han...the most interesting thing is Den already told me that on the first day they arrived! From their behaviour, Den told me Chicka Chicka is a boy and Boom Boom is a girl! Lets wait and see if we are correct!

There is another GREAT DISCOVERY (to me!!!) but I will leave that for another day.

Chick Study Day One

Den is getting a little bit bored with our usual schooling materials, so I decided it is time to detour. Last month I downloaded Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock from Freebie Of The Day, I decided to give it a try since we have not had much hand on in nature study (Im very much a city bookworm...not the outdoor type...)


For Bird study, the author suggested to use a hen. The way I see it will be more fun to raise a bb chick than getting a full grown hen....and much easier since we are living in an apartment! After asking for help in getting chicks in FB, a friend volunteered to get 2 chicks for us from her hometown! We were overjoy for I have no idea where to get bb chicks in KL/PJ.


2 kampung bb chicks arrived at our place yesterday. We decided to put them in a box since we will only be keeping them for 2 weeks...as I mentioned it will be hard to keep 2 full grown chicken in apartment! 


There were many things happened yesterday and we did not get to really study them until today. 


Today after her ballet class in the morning, Den spent 2 hours study/observe/play with the chicks. We took them out of the box and let them walked freely at our wash area. Den kept them company for 2 hours until I had to put a stop and asked her to come in for lunch. That's how she is, she really really likes animals and have lots of patient with them. 

After lunch, we discuss about different parts of a feather- Quill, Barb and Fluff; functions of feathers and why male bird's feathers is usually much prettier than female bird (I also printed out some pictures of other birds to show her)(Lesson 1 and 2 from the handbook). This is what she drew in her book:

Since Easter is coming, we have been spending time talking about Jesus last week on Earth. Today we focused on the promises of Jesus from Gospel of John. Tomorrow we will focus on the parables that Jesus told. 

She watched Goodtv in the evening and after dinner we study Chinese.

P/S: for those of you who are interested in reading the handbook online, you can go to Google Book, then type "Nature StudyBy Anna Botsford Comstock".