Chicks Hatching

A week ago Sunday was the due date for our eggs to begin hatching.

We had 42 eggs in our incubator.

And they started hatching right on schedule.

On Sunday nine chicks hatched.

I was able to watch a couple come out.

Monday morning we arrived to fine fifteen more had hatched during the night.

What an exciting sight.

We moved them into a brooding bin under a heat lamp.

After they dried we took turns holding them.

How wonderful to watch the children be very gentle and caring

and oh so curious.

Fourteen eggs remained in the incubator.

Would they hatch?

Later in the morning, Clea the farmer/teacher that gave us the eggs, visited

and improved the brooding bin making it more comfortable.

A couple more eggs began to hatch but they were having difficulties

so Clea 'zippered' them, which means she helped them hatch.

Throughout the week more families visited and had a chance to visit

and get to know the chicks.

Even our big buddies came in for a visit.

We will take them to the farm soon.

Our Egg Centre

Our eggs have arrived and our chicken coop has been removed

because a disadvantage of using cardboard is that it does wear out.

Clea, the farmer, brought us four different kinds of eggs.

The colours are wonderful and varied.

As I put each kind in the incubator the children counted them.

The largest egg is the Copper Maran (dark brown)

and the smallest is the Leghorn.

It will be interesting to see the difference in size of chicks.

We talked about the incubator that keeps the eggs warm and moist.

 Then we used a calendar to predict when they should start hatching;

in about three weeks.

While we wait we will watch and play.

Waiting for Butterflies

It's that time of year, one of my favourites, when new life appears in our room.

We've already experienced tadpoles to frogs,

which happened a lot quicker this year then in the past.

And now our butterfly larvae are in transit.

One thing that has always bothered me about our learning of

the butterfly life cycle is that we never

see the egg form.

So this year I made pretend eggs by gluing tiny pom poms

on to fake leaves.

As we waited I encouraged the children to imagine

what colour the caterpillars might be.

I wish they were all these wonderful colours.  

Snail Eggs

Every year we create a Snail Garden.

Most families have snails in their gardens that they are willing to give away

 and we find them fascinating to watch.

To start we sprayed the soil till it was very wet then sprinkled on 

wheat grass seeds.

They grow quickly and thickly.

Each day we sprayed them with water, which the children love to do.

Less than a week the grass was grown.

This morning I went into my flower garden and found two snails to bring to school.

They moved in and we gave them cucumbers for eating.

I cover the garden with screening so the snails won't escape

and to keep them safe from little fingers when an adult is not around.

We watched the bigger snail explore his new home.

We could see his foot moving on the screen and the shiny trail he left behind.

But the most exciting thing to happen was to watch the smaller snail

lay eggs.

I've never seen this happen before and I felt like a proud mama.

We picked up one of the resource books from the library and learned that it will

take 3-4 weeks for them to hatch.

Once the eggs were laid it slimed it's way up the side of the bin.

The children were fascinated.

I borrowed these snail puppets from our district's Learning Resource Centre

to further their interest.