OMG! Please help! Classroom eggs didn't hatch!

[Sally Sunshine]

Thank you guys so much for all your help and for not judging. I did find some chicks via the Utah thread! I also spoke with the parent of the girl who almost started crying today. She said the girl has a count down calendar in their home and talks about them every day at dinner. She also spent time looking up how chicks hatch online and wanted to tell her parents all about it. That pretty much sealed the deal for me. Again, thank you!

YAY!!! Keep in touch and and let us know how the kids take it all!!!!!

 

[bobbi-j]

I'm sorry this is happening. I mean no disrespect, so please don't take it that way. However, third graders are usually between the ages of 8 and 9. That is plenty old enough to either learn or already know about life and death. Why doesn't the teacher simply write a letter in regard to the recent "demise" of the eggs and send it home with children, explaining to the parents what happened (so they understand why their children may be sad or need some gentle conversations, etc).

I do remember being that age, and if someone lied to me and replaced a dead chick/egg with live chicks to ease my emotional suffering - I'd be pretty offended (and trust me, kids that age are a lot smarter than what they are given credit for. Many of them will see right through it and be confused - as they are taught not to lie).

I say don't molly-coddle...just tell the truth of what happened. It's okay to let kids be aware of the fact that life is not always rainbows and gumdrops. They'll be more well-adjusted kids because of it.

I would also candle the eggs to make absolutely certain that they're not just late bloomers before I started pitching them.

X2 Instead of saying "they died", I would probably say, "For some reason they didn't hatch. Sometimes this happens, and we can't do much about it." I think it is a good idea to bring some in, though, and tell them that if the eggs had hatched, this is what they'd look like, and this is how we care for them. When I was in first grade, we hatched chickens. Every week, the teacher would crack an egg open to show us the development. Yep, even toward the end when the chick was fully formed, and we watched it struggle to breathe and then it died. That was over 40 years ago, and I still remember it. I felt sad for the chick, but I don't feel as though I was traumatized. As a matter of fact, that experience as a whole (not just watching the chick die) is why I have my own incubator and have hatched chicks throughout the years. And brought eggs to be incubated in my boys' classrooms when they were little. (We didn't crack the eggs open, though) I just think it's wrong to lie to kids. They'll remember that more than they will remember the rest of the experience. Not trying to be judgemental here. Just sharing my opinion. I do admire you for wanting to spare the kids' feelings.