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| Chrysalides, with our odd colored #25 at right. |
The past few weeks in our classroom have been pretty eventful. Our first butterfly hatched from its chrysalis on May 14th. While we were observing it on the projector that morning, one of my boys noticed that a second chrysalis had begun to shake. As the students sat with held breath another butterfly emerged right before their eyes. Although a few caterpillars were still lagging behind, our first life cycles experiment was definitely a success.
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| Just hatched! |
May 15th marked Day 1 in our chirp-down books, the day we hoped to see even just a crack in our chicken eggs. Shortly after arriving in the classroom before school the tiniest sound alerted me to check the incubator. Sure enough, a tiny chick lay half in its egg and exhausted from hatching. A few hours later the students were able to peer in quietly and watch the first yellow chick wobble around the remaining eggs. After school a second egg began to rock and peep. By Wednesday morning there were two more tiny chicks, one black and another yellow.
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| The first chick, with feathers finally drying out. |
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| Our chicks sleeping in their new digs. |
These three have their own tub to explore while we wait for the rest to hatch. Two brown eggs had significant cracks by the end of the day on May 16th. If we are lucky, most of the dozen will survive to join their fluffy siblings.
May 16th was also tree planting day. Thanks to a grant from Home Depot, Mrs. Steele was able to arrange for each class to plant two trees in the south corner of the field. Our class helped with a quaking aspen, which they dubbed "Steve," and a blue spruce. (The blue spruce will be named as soon as my first graders can decide what name suits it.)
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| One of our butterflies blending in. |
All photos this post by Desert Belle.
