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Our Classroom is ALIVE!

This is my absolute favorite time of year - I look forward to getting to school in the morning so I can check on all the living things in our room!

First up, our plants are growing like weeds! The seed packets listed the earliest germination at 7 days, but ours have sprouted up after only 5 days! So far our forget-me-nots have outpaced the cantaloupe and turnip seeds, but yesterday we saw the first sprouts in the other pods, so it  shouldn't be long now before the whole greenhouse is full of green shoots:



In order to monitor the progress of our plants, each student has their own folder containing their Plant Life Cycle materials. So far we have started our observation journal, completed the plant labeling page and started working on the life cycle pages.


Next, we got our eggs this week! We have at least 3 different breeds of chicken eggs. I put out a call on Craigslist, and had a sweet woman who raises chickens bring 42 eggs to our school! We have green, blue and reddish brown eggs and it was fascinating to see the differences in width and length. We set them up in our incubator in the corner:


Here's what the different eggs look like:

We also started our Chicken Observation Journal, which provided some interesting insight into who my pessimists and optimists are:
 

I was rather amazed that so many students had so little faith in me to think that 0 of the eggs will hatch! I counted about 6 that said "0" while many chose numbers < 10! I've actually had tremendous luck with hatching - each year we have better and better results. I may soon have to retire and take up chicken farming if I get any better at this! If you have been thinking about hatching chicks and haven't taken the plunge yet, I recommend this incubator and turning rack. This site is also full of great advice!

All of our Chicken Life Cycle materials are kept in blue paper folders, while the Plant Life Cycle materials are kept in green ones. I scored them for 10 cents a piece before school started, and it makes it so much easier to keep everything organized to have individual folders for each student and Life Cycle! Now I can just say "Pull out your blue folders." and know that everyone will have the appropriate materials at their fingertips.


I also have the file saved to my laptop so I can pull it up on the Smartboard as needed. Check out how intently my kiddos were studying our KWL chart:



We also added that we need to find out what the comb and wattle are for, after we completed our labeling page (I honestly had no clue when they asked and decided I would wait until they found out and could tell me). Unfortunately, due to testing our school library is closed for 2 weeks, so we can't go to the library en masse to do research. I will just have to check out a huge assortment of books and have them research the topic in class :)

Before I forget,  Jennifer was the lucky winner of my Plant Life Cycle pack - congrats Jennifer, I'm emailing you the pack now!

 (Who says 13 isn't a lucky number?!)

That's it for our Life Cycles this week, hopefully next week we can start our Butterfly Life Cycles if the caterpillars arrive!


20 comments:

  1. We teach the butterfly life cycle in the fall. The kids absolutely love it!

    Karyn

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  2. I would love to do life cycle in my class. But difficult to get approval with my kiddos. I will be doing tadpoles this summer when my nephew stays with me for the summer! I remember life cycles when I was in elementary school.

    I would love to win this resource from you.

    Thank you for the chance. I am happy to follow you.

    Iteachkidsabc@gmail.com
    :o) V.
    Special Teacher for Special Kids

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  3. We have caterpillars coming to kindergarten in two weeks. Thanks for the chance to win your packet.
    Michelle
    mcoop1125@gmail.com

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  4. We are doing butterflies and ladybugs. We have turtles in the classroom too! Love plants and animal time of year!! artandcraftmom@yahoo.com

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  5. We are doing butterflies and ladybugs. We have turtles in the classroom too! Love plants and animal time of year!! artandcraftmom@yahoo.com

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  6. We are wrapping up our plant unit with the traditional lima bean in the bag today! Next up butterflies, but we too are awaiting our larvae :( I am going ahead with the unit because we have a wonderful little Butterfly House which we will be visiting in a couple of weeks!! This is my favorite time of year, too!!! I am hoping to find some tadpoles, because that would be an amazing life cycle unit, too!! Thanks for the opportunity. This unit would be a fabulous addition to our week! pcolagal1963@gmail.com

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  7. Love teaching life cycles! amandalawson4@gmail.com

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  8. We study life cycles in our classroom: butterfly, frog, chicken:)

    rachelmd93@gmail.com

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  9. We are doing butterflies and ladybugs. Thank you for this chance.
    Lkschuer@gmail.com

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  10. We do frogs, butterflies, and silkworms every year. Thanks for the opportunity to win!
    -Andrea
    simmonsa1@sfusd.edu
    cielobella@aol.com

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  11. My homeschooled daughter and I have been able to study the life cycle of wild bush turkeys, due to one randomly hatching in our back yard. What are the odds? Has been fascinating to watch the growth rate and how it interacts with the other wild birds who visit (pigeons, galahs, rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, crows, etc). We are in Australia, by the way. And bush turkey hatchlings are ever so cute: black and fluffy with long legs. We have been hand feeding it since it hatched. THanks for this opportunity. We have lots of butterflies visiting, too. thursdaytook@hotmail.com

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  12. Thank you so much!! I am so excited about the plant life cycle pack! We will be doing butterflies the second week after Spring Break. Maybe I'll get lucky a second time!

    -Jennifer
    penniesforluck@gmail.com

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  13. I just love gardening with the kiddos... there is so much to learn and appreciate in the gifts nature gives us all!
    Cindy
    Granny Goes to School

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  14. I would love to win the Butterfly Life Cycles to do with my kids, Spring is so much fun!

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  15. I would love to win the Butterfly Life Cycles to do with my kids, Spring is so much fun!

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  16. We just did a unit on oviporous animals. Will be tslking about insects and caterpillar/butterflies in May.

    Jen
    jeneratorj@gmail.com

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  17. I teach the butterfly life cycle. I just ordered my caterpillars. They should come next week. Such a fun unit. I would love to win our unit. Amy
    qbeepatte@hotmail.com

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  18. We do life cycles (butterfly, chicken, frog, ladybug) in the spring and the kids LOVE it. They are fascinated by the changes and look for caterpillars whenever we go outside. Would love to use this! Thanks for your fun blog. Susie
    DWMom4@aol.com

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  19. We do butterflies and ladybugs. I have to say I love your incubator. This is my third year with hatching chickens and the kids love it. The incubator I am using doesn't rotate the eggs so I have to do it and go up on the weekends to turn the eggs. It is my favorite. I love your life cycle units.
    Thanks and love the information in the blogs. I have some new ideas for next year!
    Laura Nabors
    lnabors@kingwoodchristianschool.com

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  20. We study plant and butterfly life cycles. Just starting butterflies this week...next week is plants!! :)

    Amy
    amyswan20 at gmail dot com
    Happy Teacher Heaven

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