steppin' up to first grade: Chicks

The chicks have finally arrived! It has been a busy and wonderful 2 weeks around here and boy do we want to share with you!

This was my first time successfully hatching and I gotta say it was such a rewarding experience. I highly recommend doing this in your classroom. It is such a great way to teach kids about patience, animal life cycles, the scientific method i.e. making observations and predictions, caring for animals and so much more!
Here are a few things I learned (the hard way, following directions with precision and accuracy is not really my forte :p ).
1. Research thoroughly before committing to a huge project that involves living things a.k.a. living animals. 2. Follow directions daily (the first time we tried hatching, there were several mistakes we made which caused the hatch to be unsuccessful (unfortunately, none of the chicks made it) *I learned that it is extremely important to have the temperature regulated well before putting the eggs in the incubator. 3. Before you even get the eggs, have a plan for where the chicks will go once they are ready to "graduate" from your classroom. Then have a back up plans and a back up-back up plan (because the last thing you want is to not have a good home secured when they are too big for the classroom and need to move on). It never hurts to have more than one contingency plan in place.
The Big Moment! So the little chicks started hatching on Mother's Day. I checked on them on Sunday morning and they had just started pipping. This is what greeted me when I checked on them Monday morning.

Isn't that so amazing? I felt so giddy when I saw that. I think I was more excited than my students!

This was right after one of our chicks had hatched. We had to keep them in the incubator for several hours so they could dry off before transporting them to their new home.

This is what the shells looked like right after the chicks hatched. Pretty amazing huh?

You can tell the chick on the far right is still drying.

The kids were SO excited to finally get to hold the chicks.

Before holding the chicks, I sent a permission slip home with each of my students and asked their parents to give permission.

You can download a free copy

HERE

And finally, this is what the chicks looked like this past Friday. They grew so much in the last 2 weeks. This past week they developed tail and wing feathers. They started getting really rambunctious. By the end of the week they were running around, jumping off their feeder, dumping over their water container and acting really wild.

It's amazing how fast they grow!

Here are some fun ways we explored chick life cycles and incorporated our new schema into our classwork.

Our chicken life cycle input chart

Chicken glyphs and chick craftivities

Check out this fabulous unit created by

Stacy Johnson

Incubation Station Math and Literacy Unit

I used it to teach my students everything they needed to know about chicks and it also included some cute craftivities and literacy centers.

I hope if you are thinking of hatching chicks your kiddos that this post helps make your hatch easier and more enjoyable.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend Ya'll!

Now it's time for me to go out and enjoy the sunshine :)

http://ohboy3rdgrade.blogspot.com

Well I can't believe this month has gone by so quickly and I am just now posting this!

I'm linking up with Farley (just in the nick of time) to share what's been going on in my world currently in April.

~Listening~

To the Kid President.

This kid is just too much! Such a hilarious little guy. I could listen to him all day :)

(he makes me chuckle)

~Loving~

Our Weather Unit

We learned all about cloud facts.

And we discussed cloud adjectives:

These ideas came from this awesome unit:

Happy Clouds

And our literature study:

We focused on Author's Purpose as we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

I absolutely LOVED using this mini unit and my kids were able to grasp the concept really quickly thanks to these awesome learning posters.

Feel free to grab yourself a copy HERE

We also had an absolute BLAST reading Thunder Cake written by Patricia Polocco then making it together.

It was so tasty!

~Thinking~

About the April Fool's prank I played on my kiddos.

I told them I brought them brownies, and then I showed them the tray with some brown "E" 's

They were pretty good sports and put up with my corny sense humor.

(thank you pinterest!)

~Wanting~

Our Chicks to hatch!

We tried hatching eggs in March and I'm sad to say not a single egg hatched!

It was so sad, but we decided to try it again.

We definitely learned some important things from the last time and I have a good feeling about this batch. Fingers crossed they should start hatching on May 10th (Mother's Day, wouldn't that be cool!)

So we are on round 2