LITTLE YELLOW CHICKS

TEN LITTLE CHICKS
Five eggs and five eggs, (Hold up 10 fingers)
That makes ten.
Sitting on top Is the mother hen. (Cover one hand with the other.)

Crack, crack, crack, (clap three times)
What do I see?
Ten little chicks
As cute as can be! (Hold up ten fingers)
                       Adapted Traditional
 

I’M A LITTLE CHICK
Tune: “I’m A Little Teapot”

I’m a little chick
Yellow and soft.
I was born
In a hayloft.

I play all day
And I cheep, cheep, cheep.
Then back to the barn
Where I sleep, sleep, sleep.
                            Jean Warren

 
CHICK PICTURES
Let your children brush glue across the bottom part of pieces of construction paper. While the glue is still wet, have them sprinkle on cornmeal and shake off the excess. Or let them press on Easter grass. Then give them chick shapes cut from yellow paper or felt to glue onto the top part of their papers. To complete, have them use markers to add legs, eyes and other details.

CHICKS IN EGGS Set out yellow cotton balls. (Or lightly brush white cotton balls with a yellow marker to give them a yellow tint.) Invite your children to turn the cotton balls into chicks by gluing on eyes and beaks cut from colored paper. Then let them glue their chicks into egg cups cut from an egg carton.

CHICKS IN THE BARNYARD
Cut five or more chick shapes out of yellow felt. Make a large yarn circle on a flannel board or carpet for a "barnyard." Then tell stories about the chicks that involve adding and subtracting, and let your children "illustrate" them by putting the chicks into the barnyard and taking them out. For instance: "Five chicks were eating corn in the barnyard. Two chicks ran away and that left three. Then one chick missed her brothers and sisters so she came hopping back. Now there were four chicks in the barnyard."

 

WHERE'S THE CHICK? Find three identical plastic eggs and line them up on a table. Invite your children to observe as you put a yellow pompom or cotton ball "chick" into one of the eggs. Slowly move the three eggs around. Then ask the children to try to guess which egg holds the chick. Open the eggs so that they can test their answer. Continue as long as you wish.

HATCHING CHICKS
Talk with your children about how chicks are born from eggs. When it is time for them to hatch, the chicks use their beaks to peck at their eggshells until the shells break open. Ask the children to imagine that they are chicks in eggs, ready to be born. Invite them to act out breaking through their shells. Then encourage them to hop around and explore their brand-new world.