Chickens, Ducks, and Turkeys, Oh My!

Illinois Ag in the Classroom has an 'egg-cellent' collection of poultry lessons! The term poultry refers to chickens, turkeys, ducks, ostriches, emus, quail, pheasants, and geese. From egg anatomy to pudding cup turkeys, check out what IAITC has to offer.

Check out these fun poultry facts:

National Poultry Day is March 19th
An eggshell may have as many as 17,000 tiny pores over its surface
Illinois has over 5 million chickens
You can tell what color egg a hen will lay by the color of her earlobes
A hen lays about 300 eggs a year
Chickens raised for their meat are called broilers

Non-Fiction Texts for ALL Grades

Read about all things poultry with our Poultry non-Fiction texts. We have something for every grade level, Pre-K - 12!

Poultry Non-Fiction Texts

It's Embryology Season!

Hatching eggs at home or in your classroom this spring? Don't miss our Embryology Exploration student workbook, which provides educational activities for students throughout the 21-day incubation process.

Check out the Egg-Cellent Embryology Illustrations

Help your students answer the question, "Will an egg from the grocery store hatch a baby chick?"

Turkey Pudding Cups

This lesson is designed to be a fun, hands-on activity that introduces students to facts about poultry and to talk about nutrition. From reading "Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey" to creating the turkeys, students will 'gobble' with laughter at this unique activity.

Lesson Plan

Science + Egg Production

Eggs are so fascinating! Check out these science-based egg-citing lessons about eggs anatomy!

Click on the picture to link to each lesson.

Originally filmed in the spring of 2020, these videos were intended to allow students learning from home to still experience hatching chicken eggs and help them learn more about embryology.

The videos take you step by step through the hatching experience with lots of fun facts along the way.

Click this banner to check out ALL the videos!

Chicken Wing, Chicken Wing...

Despite the popularity of chicken wings as a snack or meal item, many people do not realize the similarities between chicken wings and the human arm. By dissecting a chicken wing, students can identify the parts of the wing that mirror those of a human arm. That is exactly what students get to do in our less "Chicken Wings!"

Check it out here:

Chicken Wings

Poultry Jeopardy

What’s more fun than learning while playing a game? We're pretty sure this is just about as good as it gets! Students will create their own Jeopardy-style game by researching poultry facts. Think about all the fun categories they could come up with…

Poultry Jeopardy