Chicks hatching, Farms and Lifecycles

Ohmiword!!!  It's been an exciting day in my classroom.  We had our first chick hatch and to be honest...I was surrrrprised about it!!!! We put the eggs in our incubator on April 10th late in the afternoon.  So, technically tomorrow afternoon will be 21 days.  The thing that surprised me the most about this little chick is that he was in my white, Styrofoam incubator.  This is an incubator that gets the chicks that are "questionable".  In other words, I am one step away from throwing them out because when I candled them I really didn't think they would make it.  They stay here until the other ones hatch and then I get rid of all the extra eggs.  Last night I was in my room working late and I heard some chirping.  I thought it was just the birds outside singing.  I checked my clear incubator and saw nothing.  So, I left school and never thought of it again.  This morning I heard more chirping.  I looked in the incubator and saw nothing.  I went to the white foam one and TWO eggs had pips in them.  I was shocked!  Lucky little chicks were spared.  I moved the eggs to the clear incubators so that we could watch them hatch. (This post has LOTS of pics...sorry!)

My boys came with me to school this morning and they sat and watched the pip.

This is what we saw from early morning until lunch time.  There was NO change ALL morning.

During the end of my math lesson I spotted some movement in the egg.  I told the kids to put everything away and this is what we saw.  We watched for 15 minutes. I had my document camera on the incubator so we got to watch it all on the smart board. 

 

This little Chicky hatched RIGHT before we had to go to specialist!  We were EXCITED!!! 

We came back to the room and filled out a birth announcement and filled out a graphic organizer and then wrote about the chicks.

We also sang "Happy Birthday to the chick and had a birthday treat!

It was a great day!!! :)  Some of my first graders said that this was their best day in first grade. 

After school my boys and hubby helped me decorate our first grade cluster for our upcoming SPAC (academic night).  We decorated it in a farm scene because we will have our chicks on display.  Each class chose an animal from my TLC Lessons book that I bought.  My boys and hubby helped make the barn and hang everything.  This is what our cluster looks like now...

 My husband helping out...

 

It turned out really cute!!

 

We have been doing lots of things from my Chicks Unit that can be found here...Life cycles-Chicks-Math-and-Literacy-Unit-2-Common-Core-Aligned and Chicks-Math-and-Literacy-Centers.

 Dollar Store Puzzles

 Lakeshore Learning Puzzles

Puzzles with insects

 Eggs.  You crack each one open and they have a picture of what the chicks look like inside it on that day.

 Fact of Opinion cards and sentence writing.

 Sorting attributes game

 Past, Present and Future sentences.

 Money:  Matching coins with amounts.

 Determining if equations are true or not true.

 Looking at insects.

 Life Cycle stamps.

 Dollar Tree puzzle.

 Microscope with bug slides.

 Syllable sorting

 

My Doc Camera is set up on the incubator.  We can watch it on our Smart Board. 

 

I think that's about it for tonight!  Hope you are having a great week!

Sara