I bet there are folks in Boston who never want to see another snowflake!! If you live or teach in Boston, I would very much love to hear how your school system is handling all the snow days you had!
With me being out of work since the accident, I really don't have a whole lot of school stuff to blog about. I know that the substitute is doing a great job with my Dragons, and that my team mates have been a big help to her and my kiddos. I have gotten some super-sweet Get Well cards from my littles, and I have heard they keep asking when I'm coming back. I missed all of their field trips, I missed having them work with their 5th Grade Buddies to catch sneaky leprechauns, I missed having them create encouraging notes to give to their Buddies while they took their Standardized Tests, and I missed getting to see their excitement when our chicken egg incubator arrived. We work closely with the local university's 4H Program, and every year they deliver to each kindergarten classroom an incubator with 3 chicken eggs. The kinders get to watch the eggs incubate and eventually hatch, and then they get to participate in the care of the chicks. When the chicks get big enough, they are given to local farms and homes where they spend the rest of their lives laying eggs and enjoying life. I don't have any pictures of the eggs and chicks that came to my classroom this year, but thanks to the awesomeness of TimeHop I was reminded of the very first chicks I had in my classroom two years ago.
Meet Salt and Pepper, our classroom chicks from two years ago. The students I had then still talk about them, and whenever a new incubator shows up they stop in and check on the newest chicks. These chicks did not hatch from the clutch we were incubating. Unfortunately, none of those eggs hatched. Our super wonderful 4H lady, Victoria, purchased these little guys from our local Tractor Supply store. We didn't want the kiddos to be sad that none of the eggs had hatched, so we didn't tell them. One day these guys showed up and the unhatched eggs disappeared (Victoria disposed of them for us). Salt and Pepper were much loved by our littles, who got to hold them and pet them and help take care of their little home. I enjoyed watching my Dragons interact with the chicks so much, I made sure to have an incubator in our room every Spring from then on. Salt and Pepper are happily living out their lives on a local farm, and they are MUCH bigger now! I am so grateful for programs like the 4H Agriculture in the Classroom. Does your school district have anything similar? Our 4H lady has suggested we try duck or quail eggs in our incubator, though we haven't yet. If you have Agriculture in the Classroom, have you hatched anything other than chickens? i would love to hear from you, including any activities you did with your littles that focused around the chickens hatching. I'm stock-piling ideas for next year, when the incubator returns to the Dragon's Den! Please leave some comments on activities you have done or would do with your kiddos that focus around having the incubator and chicks in your classroom!
I haven't hatched eggs since student teaching, but back then we did it in cooperation with a university. The program was called Chickscope and we followed along on the computer, looking at MRI images of the chick development in the eggs. It was pretty cool!
ReplyDeleteWow, I love the idea of following along on the computer and looking at MRI images! I have never heard of that before, but I will definitely be looking into that for my kinders next year! Thank you so much for stopping by and leaving such an awesome comment!
Delete