"Eggs"-perimentation in Pre-K

We've been learning about oviparous animals as part of our Spring activities. We talked a lot about animals that hatch and played some fun games where we pretended to be animals hatching from eggs. We also read some wonderful books about eggs, including "Chickens Aren't The Only Ones" by Ruth Heller. 

I got a few toy eggs (a chick, a duckling and a turtle) that hatch in water and we put a new egg in each day. I wanted them to wonder, guess and talk about them as they observed, so I hadn't told the children what animals were in the eggs. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't hatch as planned. The eggs were supposed to hatch within a day or two, but when we left for Spring Break, only the chicken egg had hatched so far. I'm sure the School-agers using our room during the break will take them out and save them for us when we return next week. 

The teacher (Ms. H) that uses my room for the School-agers saw a neat experiment on Pinterest and decided to try it with her kids. She read that if you place a raw, shelled egg in vinegar, the vinegar will eat away the shell and leave an egg that is almost translucent, contained within the membrane. The white foam at the top of the cup is actually the disintegrated exterior shell. 

I planned on just observing her eggs, but my mom mentioned that they had some brown eggs, and a chicken that had been laying double-yolked eggs, so I brought a few in to compare them.

We watched as the vinegar bubbled around the shells. You could really see the shell in the water with the brown eggs.

A day or two later, we were able to see some of the inside of the egg. The outer layer still had to be scraped a bit to make it easier to see inside. 

When the egg broke, the membrane could be pulled off. We observed that it was soft and pliable, but when we let the membrane dry out a bit, it hardened and became brittle.  It was a very interesting exploration. 

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