Our Garden

Naturally one of the best parts of the plant unit is actually planting some seeds and watching them grow! 

I always give kids a choice between planting sunflowers or corn. Weird options, right? But they (a) grow quickly, (b) have very clearly different sprouts and (c) are really neat! Sunflowers get so huge and corn genuinely gives you little ears of corn! 

So long as you care for the plants as they grow, of course. 

This year, WalMart had the greenhouses on sale for $4.47! I am pretty sure I paid like $20 last year at Lowe's. 

Baby Chicks!

In case you don't recall, my class last year got to host some baby chicks for a few weeks while we watched them grow and study the chicken life cycle. On the weekends, I got to take the chicks home. Aside from the random poop on the kitchen floor (gross!) those guys were the best! They cuddled with me on the couch for a movie, they waddled around the house behind me as I walked through rooms, and they relished being pet. In a dogless time, they were pretty good pets! 

Flashback from last year:

This year, however, without having a farm to give the chicks to once hatched and grown, I felt like my students were going to miss out. Enter 4th grade teacher Mrs. Wildes to the rescue! She has a chicken coop and brings chicks to her class each spring. She was kind enough to let us visit her room and hold the little fluff balls. :D

So while this year's group doesn't get to watch them grow, they *did* get to hold them. I'm not sure watching is better than holding! We weren't allowed (ahem, the kids weren't allowed) to hold them last year. And just look how excited they were to be able to! 

Baby Chicks!

This year, kindergarten students are incredibly lucky to share in a first-time experience at our school.  The kindergarten team partnered with Mrs. Williams, the school librarian, to get some chicks from a nearby farm.  We have two older chicks, a boy and a girl, and six eggs in an incubator in the library. 

The kids get so excited to watch them! They are not allowed to touch them.  In the coming weeks we will incorporate more about the chicks and the chicken life cycle into our schedule.

They stay in a cage with a heat lamp and we have a blanket to cover the cage if they get too loud/distracting.

Clearly I am equally excited about this venture. ;)