Under the Ocean

Our corner has been turned into a little piece of the ocean.

What makes it special is a light that makes it look like we are under the water.

It looks even better with our classroom lights off.

Bubble Blow Painting

This week I invited the families to paint with coloured bubbles.

The bubble juice was coloured with food colouring and placed

in old muffin tins.

The children were encouraged to blow bubbles pointing at the easels.

The first challenge was to get enough bubble juice on the wand.

The parents were wonderful models on how to make it work.

 I enjoyed watching this father and son begin.

The father guided the wand into the bubble juice then up for his son to blow.

After trying it he handed the wand to his son to try it on his own.

A fun experience that they shared together.

By the end of each day we had lots of bubble prints on paper and

the table top was wonderfully coloured too.

But since it is soap it washes off.

We have been playing with bubble outside

so the children loved doing this activity

inside.

Butterfly Release

Our butterflies were ready to be released.

So we went to our grand friends to share the experience 

with them.

As soon as we opened the containers some of the butterflies 

flew out,

and up!

But the butterflies seemed to be happy to stay on the oranges

for a little while.

Long enough to walk around to share with our grand friends.

Chicks to the Farm

Our chicks are a week old so time to move them to the farm.

This year we were able to take them ourselves.

We are fortunate to have a very supportive Parent Advisory Council that paid for a bus

for us to travel on.

The chicks rode in the front seat all the way to Clea's place

where Clea explained that the chicks would still live inside 

for a while longer.

We started with a tour of two chicken coops,

first was the summer coop that had fresh plants growing.

The big chickens will move into that coop soon.

Meantime they are still in the winter coop.

These chickens are the ones that we hatched last year.

Seeing them gave us an idea of what this year's chicks will grow up to look like.

Next we went and visited the cows.

They were across the field so Clea told us to call them.

We yelled 'Cow, cow, here cow' and they came running.

They are very friendly and like to eat grass.

Next we met Clea's mom who is a Master Beekeeper.

She was outfitted to open a hive.

First she explained that the bottom two boxes are the bees home so they don't 

take the honey from them.

 

She lifted out one of the frames and we could see the bees on it.

She picked one that the honey was capped and brushed the bees off.

We got to taste it.  Yum!

Clea also taught us the difference between honey bees and wasps,

as well as mason bees.

Finally we settled on the grass for a snack and story

before climbing back on the bus for the ride back to school.

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.