Egg-citing lessons on lifecycles

Christine Carrillo

When talking about lifecycles, it all funnels back to that age-old

question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

Well the second-graders at Wilson Elementary School in Costa Mesa

found themselves tussling with that conundrum on Thursday.

As part of the La Habra Children’s Museum’s Student Outreach

Program, Wilson students got the chance to partake in an interactive

science lesson, compliments of the museum. The class will eventually

get a field trip to the museum in March.

“It’s always nice having a different voice,” said Sandy Kaszynski,

one of the second-grade teachers at Wilson. “When you teach, it’s

nice to have the hands-on content, language and concepts. ... It all

comes together cognitively.”

Keeping in line with second-grade curriculum, students at Wilson

got the chance to learn about lifecycles from an expert other than

their teacher.

Starting their lesson with a bag of plastic frogs representing

different life stages, the students worked independently as they

learned about how a frog develops and changes throughout its

lifespan.

But the true complexities of lifecycles were quickly revealed when

the students worked together in groups.

Faced with the tumultuous task of placing cards depicting

different life stages of a chicken in sequential order, the students

simply could not decide where to put the full-grown chicken -- before

or after the egg.

Though they choked before that long-standing poser, the

second-graders rose to the challenge of documenting life stages of a

slew of other animals.

“We’re making the cycle go bigger and bigger so that the rat can

grow up,” 7-year-old Timmy Kakkanatt said.

Happy to have accomplished their feat, the students at Wilson

gained a more in-depth understanding of lifecycles, thanks to their

children’s museum teacher-for-a-day, Cristy Watkins.

“It’s so exciting to watch them do it and to be so excited about

the things they’re doing and what they’re learning,” Kaszynski said.

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Christine Carrillo visits a campus in the

Newport-Mesa area and writes about her experience.