Our new friends

Sorry I haven't posted much. We had march break and then things just got crazier and crazier. I had been trying to get chicks in our class for a while and finally people started getting back to me but there are always hurdles to jump over. Now give me my 2 seconds to vent and then I will get to the positives... The big nail biter was that we weren't sure if we were allowed to do eggs anymore. So 2 weeks worth of inquiring and a whole bunch of people asking people asking people.... not to mention the fact that if we WERE allowed, there was a lot of prep I had to get done in advance, so just in case we got the all clear I spent a lot of time running around orchestrating everything ... And then we were told no. We weren't allowed to have eggs in our class because according to the day nurseries act chickens/chicken eggs cannot be in a classroom with children under the age of 5. I didn't even know we fell under the day nurseries act in the school system. So now let me jump to the solution to our conundrum. So keep reading.

There is a kindergarten class in our school that has children who are all over the age of 5. So they became the guardians of our chicken eggs. I'm happy that we kind of still get to experience this. And I'm happy that the host teacher is fantastic and doesn't mind at all even if we will constantly disturb her class for the next 28 days. It's just great that I didn't end up having to webcam the 28 days of chickens into the classroom from my bedroom hahaha. 

So my wonderful dad and sister drove out to pick up my eggs for me and then delivered them to the  school. Our incubator was being fixed so they picked that up too. It took me about 2 hours to get the incubator set up and the temperature steady. Then I got to add the eggs. What happy chickens they will be. We didn't really have any notice to prepare the children for their arrival since we had been waiting 3 weeks to hear if we were allowed to have them or not. Our chickens came today (Wednesday) and we only heard yesterday that we were not allowed. So the children were never told in advance. Which is too bad because we could have done some awesome activities in preparation for them. Once the incubator was all set up, we finally told the children. It was a hard thing to explain to them since the incubator and eggs were nowhere near us. We showed them pictures and talked about how exciting this will be. Then I told the children I was going to go out and add the eggs to the incubator and one boy said "you mean we have real eggs?" Did we not just have an entire conversation about this hahaha. Anywho, so we then took the kids down 4 at a time to see the eggs. 

We talked about how for the next 21 days all we will see is eggs but on the inside it is changing everyday. Now here is the awesomest part.... I actually found an AMAZING app that shows them what is happening on the inside of the eggs. I have my iPad everyday in the classroom so it was neat to get to use it for this purpose too. The app is an iPhone app (but works on iPad too) and  it is called "ihatch" if you are interested in it. Here is a screen shot of day 1:

So it starts by just showing the egg. Then you touch it and it shows you what it looks like if you candled the egg on day one. Then you tap it again and  it shows you the inside of the egg. Do you see that red spot? That's our chicken on its first day! You can swipe the screen and it has a write up about what is happening, and even gives you tips and reminders on the incubation. Amazing. What would life be like without technology (disclaimer: I do know what life would be like without technology. I am only a little naive, not a lot.)

I can't wait to share more about our eggs as time goes on. Stay tuned!