Good for you on getting out in front to make sure you're prepared.
Here's a link from McMurray Hatchery's page regarding the care of newly arrived chicks.
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/chickcare.html
It's pretty useful. You'll see that not a lot changes week-to-week.
The one exception to that observation is the amount of heat you need to provide your chicks. A couple of replies her debated over whether a thermometer is needed. Some folks have a knack for it and can get by without one, but for a beginner I'd suggest you get a thermometer. If only to get started.
Gather all the advice you can, and the equipment you'll need, and have your brooder ready ahead of time. A day or two before your chicks are expected to arrive, turn on your heat lamp, and check your thermometer. Spend the time before your birds arrive adjusting your temperature (by raising or lowering the lamp) until you have a fairly steady 90-95 degrees on the surface under it. Use that as your starting point. From there, the behavior of the chicks will be as important as what the thermometer reads. You'll find them to be a bunch of sleepy-heads for most of the first week, and how they're sleeping will tell you what you need to know about the temperature. If they're staying all bunched up together, you need to lower the lamp a few inches to provide more heat. If they are all sleeping out at the edges of the brightest spot of the lamp, it may be too hot and you need to raise it a bit. Ideally, they'll spread out kind of randomly, some right under the lamp, some off to the edges. A few that choose to snuggle together aren't a problem. Relying on their behavior, you should raise the lamp a little every 4-7 days, according of their behavior. Keep your thermometer there and check it so you'll have a reference, but you'll get the hang of it.
I brood mine in the garage in big appliance cartons from our local Sears store. I hang my lamp from a beam in the garage. A string from the lamp, up and over the beam, then back down, in sort of a pulley-like arrangement, so that height adjustments are simply a matter of shortening or lengthening the cord and tying it off with the lamp at a good height. Depending on the season when they arrive, you'll find some variance between night and day temps in the brooder, but if your brooder is of a good size and free of drafts, the fluctuation willl be minimal. I expect you'll be tending them regularly, night and day. The first week will be the one requiring the most attention but apart from the first day or two, if you tested your temps to begin with, you shouldn' have to adjust on a daily basis.
One of the better points someone touched on is to have your coop all but ready to go when they arrive. The WILL grow quickly and you need to be ready.
Starting out, preparation is eveything, and you've got the jump on it, for sure! We're not at Halloween yet, and you won't have our chicks until late next spring, so . . .
You'll be welcome here with any questions as you go along, but I'll suggest a book that I think will answer a lot of your questions, and help make the winter's wait seem a little shorter. It's by Gail Damerow, "Storey's Guide to Rasing Chickens." It's available from McMurray's and other hatcheries and can sometimes be found in bookstores or your local feed and seed store. Browse through it first, then go through and read up closely on the things you'll need to know and do first. Every time through it, you'll pick up on little things you might have missed before, and you'll see the parts of what, right now, seem like something of a puzzle to you, start to fit together.
And it will all come together for you, and make a lot more sense once you have your birds to tend to.
I'll be looking forward to reports next summer.
