Ack! Only 43 Days Left!

I was just looking at our school calendar to check whether we got a day off for Easter (we don't) and then I started counting and found out that there's only 43 more days of school left this year! Oh my goodness, how on Earth are we going to get to it all?! I am hoping my kiddos come back refreshed after their break, because we are going to have to hit it hard! By the way, there are no days off between now and the end of the school year - crazy! Last year AND next year there are 2 Fridays off in May, but for some reason they aren't on the calendar for this year. since we go by hours and not actual days I'm not sure how that worked out this year!


Next week we have to set up our incubator for our eggs. I am torn between doing chicken eggs again or doing duck eggs this year. Last year we did not have a very good hatch rate on our chicks, so maybe we will have more luck with ducklings? I took a trip to our local feed store yesterday and they had the sweetest baby chicks and ducklings. I can't wait to have some in the classroom! 


My other consideration for which to get is that I will be taking a week off in April to go to California. My sister-in-law is getting married April 21st. She and my husband haven't seen each other in almost 20 years, she's actually my husband's 1/2 sister and after his mom left her dad they didn't get to see each other again. Due to the wonders of Facebook, they reconnected last year, but still haven't managed to get together. So we are taking the whole family down to California for a week so we can attend the wedding and the kids get to meet their aunt! I'm really looking forward to it, but stressing being out of the classroom for a week - I have never taken off for that long!


Of course I don't want the eggs to hatch while I'm away, plus I don't want a sub to have to look after baby animals. Last year one of our little chicks died and it was quite a traumatic event for some of my kiddos. So I definitely want to be there in case things don't go as planned. Since ducklings take a bit longer than chicks to hatch, I'm thinking I might be safe going with them. That way if we set them up this week it should be the beginning of May before they hatch! Which will give us just enough time to observe them and love on them before they go off to a local farm at the end of the school year!


By the way, where do you get your eggs? I got some from local farmers last year, plus I bought some "fancy" ones off of Ebay too. The Ebay eggs had a higher hatch rate than the local eggs and the chicks were too darn cute - we called them hobbits because they looked like they had furry feet! I put an ad on craigslist and in the local yahoo freecycle, most of the farmers are willing to donate the eggs since it's a school project :)

I now have eggs and Easter on my brain, so be looking for lots of fun stuff based around that! I also have to start cracking on my Space unit and Dinosaur unit! We always do Space the first week of May since Space Day is the first Friday in May. I've never done Dinosaurs before, but I have two little guys who are dinosaur crazy this year and both their birthdays fall during the same week in May. I promised we would do a dinosaur unit in their honor that week.

Here's a fun Eastery freebie for you - no religious symbols, just some cute eggs, bunnies and lambs so your kiddos can practice their addition facts. You could just have them match these up in a pocket chart or play as a memory game in a small group. Just click the picture to download it for free at my TPT store. Enjoy!