3rd Grade Genetics and Inheritance Unit

[BGcoop]

Those ayamxEE babies are some of the cutest things I've ever seen.

Thank you. They are a bit challenged intellectually though, so I probably won’t be keeping more. (As in one of them has a condition where if you move her she almost gets like wry neck and will stumble around or even fall off the roost. She’s mostly fine if you don’t touch her though)

 

[halefamily_flock]

Here is a simplified inheritance story from one of my favorite crosses...

Mom - Dominique - black hen with barring (white stripes) that she can only pass to her sons

Dad - Spitzhauben rooster with Golden Spangled feather color/pattern and crest of feathers on his head

When the babies were born, they were all black like their mom, and the boys had a white spot on their heads

Most of the daughters were solid black, except a couple who grew in some gold colored feathers from their dad. All the daughters inherited a crest from their dad.

Here is the one who inherited the most gold from her dad, at 5 months old

Here are the sons. When their feathers grew in, you could see they inherited the barring gene from their mom.

When they got older, the one on the left (above) still looked more like his mom, but the other brother (on the right above, on the top below) got more of his dad's colors and a bigger crest.

 

[mapurcel]

I'm loving the pure effort of some of these submissions by my kids.

I introduced this activity as my "chicken friends" needing help figuring out what traits their spring chicks inherited from their parents. One kid immediately replied "you can't have chicken friends that asked for friends, they can't talk"


After a VERY quick overview of chicken anatomy in class we dove right in. We only really got to the first Chicken Family Tree but I'd love to circle back to it if we had the time later on in the unit.

Below are some of the results. Thanks everyone for helping out, and if you have more please let me know! I will continue to teach genetics every year and would love to build this activity up every year

 

[halefamily_flock]

I'm loving the pure effort of some of these submissions by my kids.

Below are some of the results. Thanks everyone for helping out, and if you have more please let me know! I will continue to teach genetics every year and would love to build this activity up every year

These are great! If you use them again, here is a photo to simplify your first page. The Offspring 3 & 4 photo includes Offspring 1, it's just an earlier age before adult feathers came in. Here is a male offspring with the gold feathering, at about the same age as offspring 1.

 

[mapurcel]

These are great! If you use them again, here is a photo to simplify your first page. The Offspring 3 & 4 photo includes Offspring 1, it's just an earlier age before adult feathers came in. Here is a male offspring with the gold feathering, at about the same age as offspring 1.

View attachment 2475418

Beautiful do you happen to have a picture with a solid color background to highlight the head feathers? It was hard for the kids to see them.

 

[halefamily_flock]

Beautiful do you happen to have a picture with a solid color background to highlight the head feathers? It was hard for the kids to see them.

I can take some tomorrow

 

[halefamily_flock]

Beautiful do you happen to have a picture with a solid color background to highlight the head feathers? It was hard for the kids to see them.

Here’s the best I could do. The head feathers are camouflage lol

 

[Xouie]

@mapurcel This is brilliant! Do you mind if I duplicate for 5th grade next year?

 

[mapurcel]

@mapurcel This is brilliant! Do you mind if I duplicate for 5th grade next year?

Please do! Chickens are perfect for these kinds of units if you want my handout template message me and I’ll email it to you!