There is absolutely nothing like having tiny living creatures in the classroom, even if not a single egg in the incubator hatched. {We’ll go over what happened at circle time tomorrow. It just wasn’t warm enough in there because of a defective fan, and we have already gotten a replacement. We’ve talked about hatching in each class next year, so these friends will get to do it all again and hopefully see the chicks come out of the egg.} Getting the very loud peeping box from the post office was very exciting, and these have been some of the most loved chicks EVER.
All of the Honeybees think that the chicks are going to your house though I’ve told them several times that they are going to a friend’s house. You are going to need to get your coop ready.
I wish I could record every conversation these children had with the chicks, and I hope that you have heard so much about them at home. All of the Honeybees have been so careful and tender with our babies. We have read so many chicken books in the past two weeks. Did you hear about “Hatching Chicks in Room 6″…..the kids were so interested in what was happening that they started thinking that the book was about us…and that the teacher in the book would come and visit us. We read several versions of Chicken Little. Ask your preschooler why the sky was falling? I think the favorite book was The Fox and the Hen. We’ll keep reading it this week, and we might even paint some rocks like the clever animals made to trick the fox.
I took the frogs back to the pond where we got the frog eggs. The children understood that we just didn’t have enough flies in our room once the frogs were sitting on their log. They needed to be free and in the wild.
The Honeybees have been working in their bird books if they were interested. Some of them have noticed even more birds. At our feeder we’ve seen the cardinal, blue jay, and two different kinds of sparrows. Outside we have our nest of starlings in the picnic shelter, and we see robins, bluebirds, crows, and the northern flicker. It is a free choice project, but some of the kids love to “write” in their book, draw, and collect pictures. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a life list of birds that started when you were three? When my kids were little we used to do the Great Big Bird Count with them. It takes place in February and can take as little as fifteen minutes a day.
We’ve been painting, cutting, glueing, and creating at a variety of Maker stations this month. We have been “making” the book “In the Small Small Pond. We’ve made the water, the plants, the frogs, and the dragon flies. The Friendly Foxes have been sending over coloring pages that they have done, and many of us are very interested in coloring right now.
This week we’ll try to do all of our favorite things. There’s a new bubble machine in my car… We have a big rainbow to paint…and I want to have a taco party on Thursday at snack time. We’ll read both of the Dragons Love Taco books, and we’ll have a box of dragon figures to play with.
I won’t be focusing on the last day of school at all. I might not even mention it. It’s hard on all of us.
