Looks like we have progress!

I started to candle our eggs the other day to check for progress.  I still have a few more that I need to check, but so far I think I am seeing some good progress with some of the eggs.  In quite a few, I can the the network of blood vessels very clearly, as well as what I think is the embryo!  I candled a few of the eggs with the students yesterday and they were pretty excited.  Here is a picture of one I looked at today:

You can't really see the veins in this picture, but I believe that the dark spot toward the bottom is the embryo (hopefully I'm right!).

We are also still waited for our butterflies.  We transferred them to the butterfly house, so each day we continue to check on them to see if they have emerged yet.

 
 In other news, we made these great shaving cream marble Earth projects last week to hang up in the hallway.  It was the perfect display for Earth Day yesterday!

And this week we are studying plants, so we currently have 4 (soon to be 5) different plant projects going on in our classroom right now.  So many exciting things for the kids to check on first thing each day when they come into the classroom!  Hopefully all these projects will have great success!

~Ms. Julie

We Have New Eggs!

Well after our unfortunate incident with the temperature spike in the incubator, I was finally able to go pick up a new set of eggs on Monday morning.  This time we have a mixture of 4 different breeds, 6 of each kind.  I hope that if/when they hatch, we will get some of each of them. The kids were definitely excited to see the new eggs!  We put them in the incubator yesterday, and so far, so good!  The temperature seems to be staying pretty stable.  

I will do the candling with these new eggs for the first time at the beginning of next week.  I hope that we are able to see some progress!

And in other news, our caterpillars have now formed in their chrysalis!  We have transferred them from the cup to the butterfly house, and hopefully pretty soon we will have some pretty butterflies.

Stay tuned!

~Ms. Julie

A Sad Day...

One night over the weekend our classroom incubator spiked to a temperature of 117 degrees.  I knew this had to be a bad sign, so on Monday I decided to candle all of the eggs for the first time and I could not find any good signs of life.  While some things I have read said that there was a chance that the embryos could survive a spike in temperature for a short amount of time, I think it just went way too high.  Since we were only a week into our project, I decided to get rid of the eggs today and I have ordered new eggs from the hatchery so that we can start our project over next week.  The kids seem to understand and were happy when I told them that we could start the project over with a new set of eggs.  I am hoping this time that we do not have another incident like this!

~Ms. Julie

So far, so good... hopefully!

Well, as of today the eggs have been in the incubator for 5 days!  The kids were excited when we put the eggs in on Tuesday and each day they had a chance to check on them.  I seem to have the temperature more stabilized, so I'm hoping that's a good sign and the embryos have started to develop.  I'm nervous about not being at school over the weekend and checking on them every hour, although I will be going in tomorrow to check on them and get a few things done for the week.  So hopefully all is well...

 

We completed our Chicken Life Cycle unit, but the kids will continue to write in their observation journals until the end of this project.  They seemed to enjoy learning two big words this week - oviparous and viviparous!  We read two great books to learn about which animals are oviparous and which ones are not - Chickens Aren't the Only Ones and Animals Born Alive and Well, both by Ruth Heller.

And in other exciting news... our caterpillars came on Thursday!  So we have added those to our science center and will patiently watch as they become butterflies.  We are all about the life cycles right now!

Next week we will do our first round of candling with the eggs to check for progress.  Hopefully it will be a neat experience for the kids.  I just hope to see that they are growing!
 

Special Project has been revealed!

Today I was finally able to reveal our hatching project to my students!  Right before Spring Break, I told them that when school resumed we would have a special project coming to our class.  They were very patient this morning and then after lunch, I revealed the eggs and the incubator to them.  They were such great listeners as I explained the hatching project to them and I was surprised with how many questions they had already!  And of course, part of explaining our project was discussing the rules that would be in place.  Number 1 rule, we look with our eyes, NOT with our hands!  I then had them come up two at a time to get a look through the window in the top.

Here is a picture of the whole area where our incubator is set up:

 

As I explained the project to the kids today, I showed them the 24 eggs that we have.  I told them that it is very likely that not all of our eggs would hatch, so I want them to expect that and not be upset if some do not hatch.  Then I had each of them make a prediction on how many eggs they think will hatch.  We have some pretty great predictions, I can't wait to see who has the closest number!

Today we did our first lesson on the life cycle of a chicken after we read the book From Egg to Chicken by Anita Ganeri.  Tomorrow, we will continue our lessons in our Chicken Life Cycle unit and start our Chicken Observation Journals when we put our eggs in the incubator!  Now I'm just hoping and praying that I can get the temperature inside the incubator to stabilize - my fingers are crossed!

~Ms. Julie

It's Almost Time!

Last weekend I went out and purchased the incubator and automatic turning tray from Tractor Supply.  While we were there, I checked out the baby chicks they had for sale and they were so cute!

Then on Monday, I drove the 35 minutes out to Mount Healthy Hatchery to pick up my 2 dozen eggs!  I didn't plan to get them so far in advance, but when I called to order them they said the only time I could pick them up was on Mondays before 11am.  And since this past week was our spring break, I had already decided to take Monday off work, so this was how I spent my Monday morning!

Luckily, I realized when I got home that I had two empty egg cartons that I had saved for some kind of project last year, so I was able to transfer the eggs to cartons that close.  The lady at the hatchery told me the eggs would be ok at room temperature until I was ready to put them in the incubator, so my fingers are crossed that I didn't get them too soon!  And so for the last week they have been hanging out on the kitchen counter...

So tomorrow I'm going to go to work and get the incubator all set up.  Then on Monday, I'll introduce the project to the kids and then the eggs will go into the incubator on Tuesday.  I was originally planning to put them in on Monday, but that would put our hatch day on a Sunday.  I would much rather have the hatching happen during the week when we are there, so Tuesday is the day!  More pictures to come after I have everything all set up.

~Ms. Julie

Welcome!

I am so excited about starting my very first teaching blog!  I have decided to start now because when we come back from Spring Break next week, my class is going to have a very special project coming to our classroom. I wanted to have a way to document what's happening with the project, as well as other things that are happening in our classroom.  This is my third year of teaching Kindergarten and I have recently started reading blogs by other Kindergarten teachers.  Stay tuned to find out what's happening in the Sharks classroom!

~Ms. Julie