Animals That Hatch From Eggs Project

My four year old came up with a great idea.  We were reading a Dinosaur Train book about how Buddy hatched from an egg when he said, "We should do a project about eggs hatching!"


I'm pretty much always up for a project and it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about all the different animals that hatch from eggs. I found the perfect book at the library called Chickens Aren't the Only Ones.  Of course, it's all about the different animals that hatch from eggs.  It gives enough good scientific information to be appropriate for older readers, but it's so concise and engaging that my toddler and preschooler enjoyed it too.  The illustrations are great and could keep you busy for a long time.  There were lots of animals that I didn't know/wouldn't have thought of included in the book.

For our project, we folded paper in half and cut egg shapes, leaving the top connected so we had an egg that opened. 

Drew told me what animals he wanted written on the front of each egg.  It would have been impossible to include all the animals from the book, so he chose his favorites. 

The idea was for him to draw the animal inside the egg so when you lifted it up, the egg hatched.  No go.  He is rarely in the mood for drawing.  So instead we chose pictures of each animal on the computer, printed them off, and he cut and glued them inside.

Then we made a paper plate nest for the eggs.  He came up with the idea of cutting the sides of the plate to look like a real nest.  (That kid is pretty smart in my totally unbiased opinion.)

When it was dry, he glued his eggs into the nest.

You could also sort the animals into different nests like "reptiles", "birds", etc.  The book gives enough information for that, but we were happy combining them all into one.