The Golden Egg Nature Book Club ~ An Egg-citing Party School

Eggs, Pickled Eggs, Geode Eggs, Birds' Eggs and Egg Nests-- we were all about eggs this month in our The Golden Egg Nature Book Club. We read The Golden Egg Book and discovered fascinating things about eggs.

This month our book club was on the book, The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown. This sweet children's book is about a bunny who finds an egg. He imagines what might be in the egg and spends the day playing with his new egg. When the bunny takes a nap, the egg hatches and the new animal has fun with his very asleep new friend.

We decided to go on a nature walk and see if we could find an egg like the bunny did in the book. But, alas, it was still too cool for the birds to have migrated and begin nesting. However, we did find some really cool trees and an old mockingbird nest from last season with a feather.

This book gave us a great opportunity to talk about eggs. We decided to come at it from two different angles - the science of eggs and the nature study of eggs. So, for the vegans readers, this part may not be your cup of tea.  

We started with learning about eggs. We found a great site, The American Egg Board, for experiments, lesson plans, games, and more. We started by learning about the parts of the egg, how eggs make it from the farm to the table, and we wrote stories about our egg on the farm.

Next, we performed some egg experiments. We put two eggs in vinegar to see what happened. In just a few minutes we began to see bubbles on the surface of the eggs. The next day, the egg shells had begun to dissolve and the eggs had nearly doubled in size. 

The eggshells are composed of Calcium Carbonate. This reacts with the acid in the vinegar to release carbon dioxide - the bubbles. It also causes the eggshells to dissolve. After several hours the eggs become soft and rubbery. The kids had fun bouncing them like rubber balls. Just watch the video below.

We also made egg geodes. I got the idea from Martha Stewart, but modified it to fit our homeschool. We made up solutions of Kosher Salt, Sea Salt and Borax in approximately 4 parts water to 1 part solute. The kids chose different colors of food coloring to represent each solution. Then we poured the solutions into empty egg shells.  

The next day we discovered that the solution had permeated the shell by osmosis. The Kosher salt mixture had the best results with some really cool crystals forming on the outside of the egg. We even got some close up shots of the salt crystals with my macro lens.

I know it seems a little wrong to read a book about hatching eggs and then eat eggs, but eggs are nutritious and pack full of protein. So, before we jumped into eating the egg, we learned a bit about the nutrition of eggs. The Egg Nutrition Center is a great resource for egg facts.

Because eggs are so nutritional, we made some scrambled eggs and omelets. 

We love mixing art in with our nature study. Often we are found sketching at the park. So, it was natural for us to add a chalk pastel painting to our nature club. Nana at Chalk Pastel Tutorials has a fantastic tutorial for painting bird's nest. We each used different colors and came up with our own version of the bird's nest. You can find this tutorial in the Spring Chalk Pastels course.

We carried our fun with The Golden Egg further and created an online book club with more rabbit trails of rabbits, eggs, ducks and more. We added a few more fun activities and then ideas for a party school with the kids (and maybe even some friends). 

Get a sneak peek at The Golden Egg Book Online Nature Book Club below.

The Nature Book Club is brought to you by these 9 nature loving bloggers and myself who are your co-hosts! Are you following them? If you don’t want to miss anything, be sure to follow each one.

Here are the co-hosts, their choices of books, and activities for the month:

Table Life Blog - An Egg Is Quiet - Clay Eggs Project

Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus - Our Sea Turtles - From Egg to Sea Turtle Unit Study & Lapbook

Eva Varga - Skates & Rays - A Mermaid's Purse: A Surprise Discovery Within

Freshly Planted - An Egg is Quiet - Egg Indification Nature Bingo {Free Printable}

Eva Varga - Citizen Science - Nest Watch