FIRBANK GRAMMAR, Sandringham Campus

What came first?

In the spirit of authenticity we decided our chooks should take their first breath at Sandringham House.

In a lot of schools, students learn about life cycles by studying charts and diagrams. However, at the Sandringham Campus, the Year 5 students were given the responsibility of incubating, hatching and caring for our new chicks. Ten chicks were born, three of which will be kept in our soon-to-be-built chicken coop adjacent to the veggie garden. The Year 5 students designed the coop and gathered recycled materials from their parents’ works and from people’s houses to put their plans into action.

Here are some reflections from the Year 5 students involved with the planning and building of the chicken coop:

I have been fortunate enough to be a part of building the chicken coop. We had a meeting at the very start to understand what we had to do. We then had to create a design based on the image Mr Kenny drew on the whiteboard. We had to decide the measurements for the coop and then submit them the next day. We then went outside and discussed what the measurements would be and found a few measurements for the length and also the running around area. We then had to collect wood, tin and weather boards from the Senior School to create the chicken coop frame. We started building the coop after a few weeks and got really excited. We started to nail, saw and measure lots of different things to get the same measurements from the drawing board for the wooden frame. We have just started to put the weather boards along the front and dig some bricks under the wooden frame so that foxes and rats cannot get in.

Overall it has been great fun so far!

By Millie

These past few weeks we have been building a chicken coop. First we had to make a frame for the coop. What we had to do was create a house, we also had to add protection for the chickens from the foxes because they will eat the chickens. We have been working as a team to dig under the chicken house so we can put some bricks down so the foxes don’t get the chickens. We also have to use saws, hammers, nails, ladders and tape measures to mark out where we have to cut. I think this is a great job.

By Callum

First our chicken coop group was challenged to design and build a coop for our baby chicks. Once we decided on the design, we went searching for recycled materials like weatherboards, tin, wood, bricks and wire. Then we started putting our frames together and finally began putting our main structure together. Currently, we are at the stage where we are laying bricks so that foxes are not able to dig under the coop. I have found building the chicken coop is a great experience. I enjoyed constructing because this experience also taught us how to design and learn the logic of building. We have found that mistakes are not so easy to fix.

By Brodie

We have now involved our Year 4 students into an hour session each week where we care for the chickens, harvest eggs and vegetables and then use these items for cooking.
Since the chooks hatched from their eggs into little chicks they’ve grown into wonderful, healthy and friendly hens.

They’ve helped us with loads of things like fertilising the garden beds and laying eggs for us to keep and cook with, but with great chickens comes great responsibilities such as cleaning their coop, making sure they have enough food and water and keeping them safe from predators like foxes. Having these chooks has had a big impact on our school. They’ve taught us many things that we didn’t know before, they’ve been patient on letting kids hold them, teaching them where their food comes from and teaching them to be gentle.

One of the other benefits of having chickens is being able to sell or raffle their eggs. We raffle the eggs every Friday and sell the raffle tickets throughout the week, the eggs that have been laid that week will go into that raffle. All of the money that is raised goes to a great fund of the prevention of battery hens and cage eggs. Chickens are great to have and we all think that every school should have them.

By Matilda, Jesse and Sascha