Home Schooling and Raising Chickens

[AccidentalFarm]

Because it came up in another thread, and I thought it was an interesting topic, instead of hijacking the other- I'm starting this thread to find out how many of you BYC'ers home school your children and how you integrate it with lessons.
I'll start by saying that the obvious lesson is the economics: cost of raising chickens vs. savings on the families food bill (eggs/meat). Another is the life cycle - we plan to try hatching soon. I'm uncertain exactly how, but I think health issues could also play in- i.e. organics, commercial farm practices, etc. and what exactly you are buying when you purchase eggs and meat at the supermarket. Homesteading is another issue I'd like to have the kids explore.
I would love anyone else's input, suggestions, or experience with this-even if you do not home school.
We are about to break for summer in a couple of weeks. However, my kids love helping to come up with future lesson plans, so I think this is one we can spend some time pondering over the summer and have ready by the time we 'officially' start back up.

I'd be glad to share the lesson plans we come up with with anyone else.

 

[janramsey]

Well so far....we have only incorporated shop class into our schooling as far as the chicks go. My boys are 13, 17 and 19 .....they are building my coop. Oh wait that would cover math too measuring and remeasuring.....LOL...

I can see a lapbook for younger kids on life cycles...!!

 

[Corey NC]

I am homeschooled but the only purpose my chickens have school related is that they are my long term "science project," or so that is what I tell me neighbors.

 

[AccidentalFarm]

Ahh- I hadn't thought about the shop class angle...good idea!

 

[hipmarye]

My kids are 10 and 7. We have a HS co-op that meets for 2 hours once a week for 6 weeks in the fall and in the spring. We just finished our Spring Co-op. My daughter took a pioneer living class and my son took hands on homesteading. Both had the opportunity to make butter and learn about what life was/is like on a farm. We rationalized the whole 4H thing to convince ourselves that raising a couple of chicken would be a good idea. My son will only eat brown eggs now.
Anyway, the girl that I assisted in the kids art class had some eggs incubating so we bought 6 day old chickens from her.

We are trying to incorporate the building of the coop, responsibility of caring for them, and that sort of thing. We also looked at a chicken laying eggs on youtube.

I just don't want them to grow up thinking chickens, eggs, etc comes from Kroger. I could use any other suggestions anyone has.

We're making ice cream in a bag this afternoon.

Oh, and we found some really cool information from Usborne's Internet linked books about eggs and incubating them. The link for the eggs is http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/ or
http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/explore/embryology/
Somewhere on here we got to care for imaginary eggs keeping the temp adjusted just right
Another link with info on the egg is http://www.aviary.org/curric/onegg.htm.
Have fun.

 

[cookinmom]

Man, this is a cool thread. I'm past the point of homeschool now: my son graduates on the 24th and my daughter is just a year behind. Looking back now, I think homeschool would have been great. Someone else would have to have helped them with math though! You wouldn't want any economic info from me either. We went a little nuts on the chicken coop, and I've been teased that it will take 20 years of egg production to pay for it!

Way to go, all you homeschoolers!

 

[karri25]

WE homeschool WE got opur chickens from our homeschool 4-h group! WE are using them for: economics/ho wto run your own business (I think you said the same), for carpentry/building the coop, science, and we are doing the whole Sarah, Plain and Tall and Little House on the Prairie thing so it fits there as well! Oh and of course he is learning how to show them b/c of the whole 4-h link which I think is really cool. I am so glad to see fellow chicken heads that homeschool

 

[65browneyes]

We've been contemplating homeschool for two years now. We have a girl in 4th grade now and a boy in 7th. For a lot of reasons, I've been concerned about our Middle School here, but sent the boy last year because he wanted to be with his friends. Now I'm kicking myself for not going with my gut instinct to begin with.

Anyway.......we're just now beginning to look into legalities, curriculum, etc. Honestly never considered incorporating the chickens into our curriculum and lesson plans.

Thanks for starting this thread! I look forward to continuing to learn from everybody here. Yet another reason I love this forum!!

 

[AccidentalFarm]

Quote:
Icecream in a bag sounds fun! We'll have to give that a go this summer. Thanks for the links...I'm going to take a better look at them later when I have more time

 

[AccidentalFarm]

Chicken-mama,

I'm lucky that we are in Texas- home schooling is by and large left up to the parent. The state pretty much just stays out of it.

We are using a 'pre-made' curriculum right now, albeit rather loosely. I guess my kids fall more into the 'unschooled' category. We base what we do on public school mastery charts, but really only as a general guideline, so the kids don't fall behind 'public' standards. We have not had a problem falling behind- on the contrary, my kids are well above the states 'standard mastery levels'.

Both of my kids did a 2-3 year stint in public schools after starting out in a private school for a year or two. My son started at age 3, only because I taught at the school and he was welcomed into the pre-k class. He ended up skipping kinder as he was reading at 4 and has excelled ever since. My daughter is the same way, although she did not read as early. They both do love books - barnes and noble is their absolute fav place to shop.

We love home schooling. We go over what concepts we are going to tackle and the kids enjoy figuring out ways to make it fun to learn. For example, when my daughter needed to learn fractions- we decided making and eating pies and pizzas would be a good visual tool. The measuring of ingredients, as well as the slicing to allow 'enough' for X number of people to have a slice or two really helped her to get the idea.

Homeschooling is really great in so many ways. I hope you find all the info you need and that it is something 'do-able' for you. It is very rewarding!