It was never a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg; it was always the egg. Instead, the intense question was which egg would hatch first.
That’s because a rather straightforward life-cycle unit with chickens took a fantastical turn in the classroom of Stephanie Webster, third-grade teacher at Lincoln School in Great Bend.
“When thinking about how I wanted to do the unit this year, I knew I wanted to do something fun,” Webster said. “My family is really into Fantasy Football so my brother-in-law and I came up with a whole unit using the same rules you use when competing in Fantasy Football.
“On Day One when we got our eggs, the students were put into a team with another person from the other third-grade class,” she explained. “They had to create a team name that started with a town or state and ended with something to do with chickens.”
Team names included the Seattle Sea Chicks, Kansas City Egg-lets, Hays Hot Hens and Webster’s favorite, Great Bend Yolkies.
Students then drafted their eggs just like in Fantasy Football when people have to draft players. They had to select their egg from all the eggs in the incubator and make predictions about what color they thought their chick would be and what day their egg would hatch.
Webster explained that students could win the 2017 Chicken Championships by earning the most points over the course of the unit. They earned points by completing all of their assignments and activities the day they were due. Activities included daily observation logs, word searches and diagrams.
They also earned points for attendance and having both teammates there. They received five points for naming the right color and five points for correctly predicting the day they hatched.
The first team’s egg to hatch received five points and the last team’s egg to hatch received five points.

Chicken Cam
“One really cool thing we did was create a live video stream that we called the Chicken Cam,” she said.
“We didn’t want students missing out on the chicks hatching when they were at home so we had a live Chicken Cam that students could watch at home and show their parents.
“We sent it out to the whole school so this enabled them to be involved in our class championships as well,” she said.
“The camera was in the incubator so they were able to see really well when the chicks started to break through the shell, pop out looking all wet – which was, honestly, kind of gross – to them drying off and becoming fluffy,” Webster said.
“At night we kept the sound on so that they could hear the peeps from the chickens outside of the eggs as well as in the eggs,” she said.
Day 21, the day when most chickens hatch, was celebrated as the Chicken Bowl.
“I bought chicken-themed treats for the kids to eat while we watched the Chicken Cam with the other class just like a Super Bowl party,” Webster said. “They loved it!
“The day they were to go home (to a family member’s farm), we put newspapers on the floor and brought in both classes to sit in a big circle,” she said.
“We took out all the chicks and let them run around on the floor so students could see them up close.”
In the end there was a three-way tie for the Chicken Championships that was broken with an overtime race.
Chicks were placed at the starting line by their team owners and cheered by the fans until one passed the finish line.
“The kiddos had a blast and so did Mrs. (Chelsea) Mauler (her co-teacher) and myself,” she said. “First place went to the California Gobblers. It was such a blast and so worth the time it took.”