Chickie Love

Good news travels fast and we have heaps of good news in Grade 1! This week we experienced God's incredible new life first hand as we watched chicks hatch before our eyes!

A dozen tiny little babies arrived throughout this week!

We could not wait to give the chicks many gentle cuddles. The boys and girls learned they needed to sit while holding a chick, and to keep a hand under their feet as well as lightly on their back. 

While some students spent time taking in the new life, others tackled the illustrations for a rhyming booklet called "5 Little Chicks". The chicks in our illustrations are made from torn construction paper. 

Mrs. Beliveau and her brood are keeping careful watch this weekend over the new little life! As a class, we'll be caring for these beautiful chicks until Tuesday, when Mrs. Junck returns. 

It has been an AMAZING few weeks filled with loads of valuable science and language arts lessons. More importantly, however, are the lessons we have learned about new life, respect, patience, and compassion. God's work is truly amazing!

Thank you, God, for blessing us with this experience! We are in truly in awe of your amazing work and beautiful creations!

Identifying the Parts Of a Story

This week we were introduced to the parts of a story! 

We made our own beaded story retell bracelets to help cue us to each part of the story. Each colour reminds us of a different part of the story. 

Then we listened to The Gingerbread Boy, and used our anchor chart and bracelets to figure out the parts of the story together. 

We'll be using our bracelets as we read many books together. We'll be working hard to identify the beginning (characters, setting, and problem), middle, and end of each story. We're going to have so much fun!

Clucking and Candling!

Tuesday was day 7 of our hatching journey!

We learned that on the 7th day of growth, the comb begins to grow and the egg tooth starts to appear. The egg tooth is a small, hard cap on the tip of the beak that allows the chick to peck out of the egg. Isn't God amazing?

Earlier this week Mrs. Junck brought in a hen and a rooster! We compared and contrasted hens and roosters, and then we learned more about the life cycle of a chicken. We were even able to gently pet the hen and rooster! It was like Old MacDonald's farm in here!

We candled a few of the eggs in our incubator. Candling shows us if the egg is developing into a chick. First we made our classroom very dark. Using a bright light, we were able to see if there was a developing chick inside the egg or not. Dark, shadowy egg? Chick! Bright, lit up egg? No chick. 

Can you see the dark spot on the lower half of the egg?
That is a developing chick!

We are learning about the miracle of life and have been exploring the life cycles. Ask your child to explain the life cycle of a chicken!

We are so excited for day 21 to arrive! That is when we will eagerly watch for our eggs to begin hatching! Until then, we will continue to pray for our little ones and marvel at the miracle of new life. God is so good!

Our Egg-Citing Adventure!

Let the adventure begin!

This week we carefully placed 22 beautiful eggs into a warm, humid incubator. We can't keep a hen in our room, so the incubator acts as a mama hen, turning the eggs while keeping them warm and moist. Each day we monitor and record the temperature and humidity.

These eggs didn't come from the grocery store, they came from Mrs. Junck's family farm! Mrs. Junck is guiding our learning and hatching. Each Tuesday in April, we look forward to her visit!

We noticed that the eggs in our incubator are many beautiful colours. They don't all look the same. We cracked open a brown egg and a white egg from Mrs. Beliveau's fridge, and noticed they looked the same inside. Then we had a really powerful discussion about how WE all look different on the outside, but on the inside, we all have a heart, want to be loved, and are God's creations.

We are only a few days in and have already learned so much! Who knew a 22 eggs could be so exciting? This is sure to be a wonderful journey as we experience new life first hand!