shehita at school

My 5th grade son's class is just about to start learnign mishnayos masechet z'vachim which deals with various korbanot and their laws.

His rebbe asked if I would come in today with a chicken and shecht it for them, showing them what shehita is and the parts of the chicken and they would have a more real concept of it when learning z'vachim.

I said sure, so I went today to a local moshav and bought three chickens from soebody with a chicken coop. I brought one of them to the school later in the morning for the demonstration.

The 5th grade class and the 6th grade class came out to watch. They set up their chairs and I started to show them the various items and equipment, including letting the chicken run around a bit. I showed them the knife and one of my sharpening stones.

Most of the other classes also came out to watch. The various rebbeim wanted to see, so even though it was only for 5th and 6th grade, they all were there except for one. I now know that my 3rd grade sons rebbe has the best control over his class of all the rebbeim. My sons 3rd grade class was the only one not to come out and join us.

After talking a bit, I went off to the side and shechted the chicken. We decided not to shecht it in front of the kids, just in case some would be sensitive. It had not been planned in advance and parents had not been asked, so we felt the best way to deal with it was to shecht not in front of the kids.

After the shehita, I showed them the trachea and esophagus that I had cut. I then began to skin the chicken and open it up. I showed them the various organs, including the heart, liver, intestines, air sacs (equivalent of lungs) and more. My sons rebbe did the kisui ha'dam (covering the blood which needs to be done after slaughtering fowl), as it is not a very common opportunity to do this mitzva, so I gave him ownership of the chicken and let him do that mitzva.

After a nice demonstration, we left. I went home and slaughtered the other two chickens and kashered them. After kashering was finished, I took the first chicken to the rebbes house so he could have it for shabbos.

Later in the day the principal dropped off a cake for me in gratitude and had created a certificate thanking me as a friend of the school with some long text which I have not yet had a chance to read completely

pre-shehita demo

the shehita itself
post-shehita demo