Notice anything new? You shouldn't. They still just look like eggs. But we are less than 48 hours away from our hatch. Our chickens are getting too big for those shells now and are almost able to reach the air pocket and take that first very important breath. Wow. What a miracle of life. What an honour to facilitate this process. I think it may mean more to me than it does to my children but they are sure getting excited too. We have been sharing what the inside of those eggs look like every single day with the ihatch app. The children have also been drawing their own interpretations and writing a sentence about all that is happening. We are already at day 19. How time flies.
The children can tell you what all the parts inside the egg are, how the chicken will hatch, how long it may take, what growth and development is happening etc. They are totally getting this. On Friday we did a craft together for them to take home and share with their family's. It was 2 plates that spin to show the different stages of development inside our eggs. The majority of them turned out amazing. They knew the order they needed to go in since they have been watching these chicks grow since day one.
I hunted for the link for this activity but of course I can't find it now. If you go to www.agclassroom.org/ut and click on teacher centre, then resources you can find a similar paper by searching for kindergarten science resources. It's call "inside the egg, hatching chickens".
But here is what it looked like:
There were 8 pictures in total for the kids to colour and cut out. Then they glued them on the plates and hey budda boom budda bing.
Ok, now I can get to the really cool part. With the hatching fast approaching, Mrs. K went to the principal to see if there was any way at all that we could have the incubator in our classroom during the 3 days of potential hatching. The eggs would not be touched, the incubator lid would not be removed please pretty please! Well we can't but our principal came up with an AMAZING solution for us. Are you ready for this? We are live streaming it to our classroom via webcam. Yup you read that right. Our principal went out and bought a webcam. A computer was relocated to right beside our incubator and set up to live stream the eggs. It's on from whenever we log in in the morning until 8pm at night. I believe it took a lot of work through our school and head office to get everything in place. They worked fast and it is such am amazing solution. We got a bunch of licences too so that the majority of the classes can live stream the hatch at the same time. I am so excited for this now. And as for our class, we have been watching bird feeders through a web cam since the beginning of school so this is a concept we are already familiar with. Now we can have the hatching happening all day and still go on with our daily business. I am so blessed to have I this kind of support at our school. They recognized how important this was for our class and went above and beyond to find a solution for us. If you ever read this blog, please know how much this meant to all of us! Thank you!
Finally, over the weekend it was time to put together a brooder box in preparation for our hatchlings. Greenacres recommended a cardboard box 24" X 24" X 18". As someone who is sized challenged I thought a bankers box would fit that scale. I had googled cheap and easy ideas for brooder boxes for classroom use and the best idea I saw had used a bankers box. So when I went to buy one, the sizes were 12"x12"xsomething small. Not even close to what I needed. This was a way more complicated job than I had expected. 4 stores later I was at solutions and looking at their cardboard boxes. I found a big plastic box that was similar to the size I needed but I really didn't want to spend $32.99 on it. So I was humming and hawing over the cardboard ones as none of them were my exact dimensions. I ended up going with a box that was 18"x18"x27". I duct taped it together at home and Laid the box on its side. Then I cut my own top into it. So here is a bad photo from the side:
I cut half the top off by cutting down into the side, and the other half just straight off. My dad and sister helped me out here too. We added dowels under the lid to support the weight from the light. There is also a hole cut in the top for the light to go through.
We had a piece of plexiglass lying around that we used to help keep some of that heat in but since the roof is 2 different heights, it also allows for air circulation and a great viewing window!
I duct taped a garbage bag in the bottom to help with spills and then covered the whole bottom with wood chips. Yes there are 3 thermometers there. They won't all be there when the chicks come but I had purchased the little round one and we were just ensuring that the temperature reading was accurate.
I can't wait to share about the hatch!
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