The Last Turn

I went in this weekend for the last turning of the eggs! They have needed to be flipped at least 3 times a day for the last 18 days. Now the last 3 days they only need to be left alone...as we cross our fingers! Tuesday or Wednesday should be the day!!!

So far, so good!!

Day 2 has been a success! The students are doing a great job of helping remind me to flip the eggs! It is so fun to see how excited they are!

We are learning about each stage of the chicks development so far. Yesterday the head, brain, and spine started forming. Today the heart, throat and, and ears began to form!

I just continue to hope that we have some successful hatchlings! The only way to know though is to wait 19 more days!!

Here are some pictures of the incubator and some of their predictions of how many eggs will hatch. I love the optimistic 11s!!

Eggs!

I just picked up our eggs from Town Line Poultry Farm in Zeeland! They are a hatching farm for farm stores and home poultry enthusiasts!

We will be hatching Araucana chickens (hopefully). Town Line describes them as: 

They are called the Easter egg fowl because they lay colored eggs:

blue, green, pink, and olive drab.Birds vary in size and color, some with

 whiskers and others with muffs of feathers covering ears.
 

They should be interesting!!  Hopefully we will have between 6 and 10 chicks!

Town Line Farm

 

The workers putting the eggs into the incubators.  The incubators are the wood cabinets along the left.

  

Here is the incubator.  It holds 30,000 eggs!  The farmer said that they distribute about 140,000 chicks per week and have about an 80% success rate with their eggs..

 

Eggs ready for the incubator.

  

Boxes of chicks, ducklings, and other poultry ready to be picked up or delivered!!

 

Inside one of the chick boxes.

  

A mixed box...turkeys and ducklings!

  

Our little purchase from Town Line...12 Araucanas eggs, ready for the incubator!! 

Butterflies

We had a great time at Meijer Gardens!!  Here are a few pictures!!  Thank you to everyone who came!

Spring Break is Coming!!

I just came across this great list from grkids.com that has tons of ideas for Spring Break if you are staying in town!  My favorites are under the educational tab of course!  Click here for the list!

A few favorites:

Zoobilee...at the John Ball Zoo with special activities going on each day.
Dairy Discovery in Alto is an amazing working dairy farm that lets the students get up close and personal with the cows...oftentimes they are even able to give a bottle to a baby cow!
The Critter Barn in Zeeland...always has neat hands on activities going on related to animals!!

I hope you and your child can stay busy and keep learning during spring break!!

100 Days of Kindergarten!!

We passed a huge milestone last week...100 days of Kindergarten!!

We were lucky enough to have a visit by Zero the Hero!  His favorite number is 0 of course, so he especially loves the number 100!!  He read us a story about the 100th day of Kindergarten, helped us with our calendar and counted with us to 100!

We were then able to make necklaces using 0's...100 of them!  We counted by 10's until we had 100, then strung them on necklaces.  One student even observed that when they were on the necklace, the necklace looked like a 0!

We ended our day by looking up at the sky for Zero...he can fly of course...and got a quick look at the trail he left behind as he flew off to another school to celebrate the number 0!!

The Critter Barn

I just found out that The Critter Barn in Zeeland is free during January and February!  I have never been, but I have heard great things from other teachers and parents!  They have lots of animals and have a great focus on community and sustainability!  Their hours are Mon. - Sat. 10 - 3.  You can get more information at www.critterbarn.org!!