In this lesson, the children will explore their outdoor environment on a scavenger hunt to find and classify different natural materials.

This lesson is intended to help students realize that they can learn a lot about chickens—and animals in general—through close observation. They also should come to understand that it is important to learn about the special needs of eggs/chicks in order to take care of them, whether on a farm or in a classroom hatching project. This lesson can be used as an orientation for students before doing a chicken-hatching unit in class. It may also be used in conjunction with the unit to emphasize the importance of the proper care for eggs/chicks. 

This series of 5 high-quality, standards-aligned, inquiry-based lessons have been field-tested by the 4K students of Wequiock Children's Center for Environmental Science, their teacher and educational assistant. These lessons encourage students to use natural areas around their school as they improve their science and engineering skills as part of a unit on observing changes. Created as a part of a WISELearn OER Innovation project, Connect, Explore, and Engage: Using the Environment as the Context for Science Learning was a collaboration of the Wequiock Children's Center for Environmental Science and the Wisconsin Green Schools Network. One of the goals of the project was to create standards-aligned lessons that utilize the outdoor spaces of the school . These lessons were created to take place during late winter.