Chicks Chicks Chicks

As you know I have been working on incubating chicks in my classroom. Well, it was taking a little longer than planned aka for some unknown reason no chicks were hatching. So, I cheated. There I said it, I'm a cheater. I went to a hatchery and asked for two eggs that were getting ready to hatch, and they were nice enough to donate to my good cause. My kids were able to witness the eggs peeping/shaking/cracking, but the actual hatching took place after school.

Needless to say there were some very excited kids in the morning. Morning routines have already been messed up by excitement from checking the incubator every morning, so I decided to prevent that from happening with this chaos. I stopped the line in the hallway and had everyone take folders out of backpacks right then and there. Then I let them in little by little to sit on the rug. They were surprisingly well behaved and followed directions with a few prompts. The morning was consumed with going over rules for handling the chicks, holding the chicks, and naming the chicks! Some names in the running were: Daisy, Jenna, Emily, Rose, Betty, Freddy, Fishbowl, Army Guy, Hat, Red, and the winners (seen below). I wrote all the names on paper and then drew 3 boy and 3 girl names. Then the students made a human graph to determine the winners. I must admit this was also a bit staged when Princess Kate was chosen obviously Prince William had to be a choice when it was time to vote. I was impressed that my kids remembered the wedding that had taken place. We had briefly discussed it on Monday when I was told "A new princess was born", but it just shows how much of an impact this royal wedding made on everyone--even 6 year olds. Below are nametags and "Buckingham Palace"-made out of paper, tp rolls, and glitter glue.

Is this a project I will undertake next year? I think so. Will I do things differently? Yes! I think I'll make friends with the hatchery next year too and save the stress/waiting time/money. In the meantime the learning experience and excitement has made all this work well worth it!