Chick Action

This is a belated post about our precious chicks! Last Friday, we had a lot of fun with them. After 21 days of turning the eggs and watching them hatch, the students FINALLY had the chance to touch, hold and play with them. They are too cute!

We wanted to be careful since they were only a day old. We observed that the chicks really liked the heat from the light and stayed huddled together to keep warm. It was cold after being in the warm incubator!

In order to get the chicks comfortable with us, we started by reaching into the box to practice holding the chicks and petting them. The chicks were scared and a little jumpy, but eventually they learned to like us! :-)

Lots of hands reaching down! They had no idea what to think!

We did have a little chick with a hurt leg. We observed that the other chicks seemed to pick on him a little bit. We all felt so sad for him.

A couple of the girls had the chance to actually hold the chicks for a little bit. When the boys get the chicks out, one of them pooped! Needless to say, it made the boys not want to hold them anymore!

(Anna with a chickie)

(Janae with a chickie)

(Kelly with a chickie)

(Jessica with a chickie)

One of our cute chicks! We miss hearing them peep and move around. Anna has all three at her house right now and is taking good care of them. We are getting updates from her each day on how they are growing and changing.

We had a lot of fun with our chick project. The students will be bringing home a certificate from the 4-H program annoucning their completion of the program. Perhaps there are some future chicken farmers in our third grade class?

Have a happy day!

Stephanie's Post

The chicks have hatched. They all went home with Anna!

-Stephanie Pini

The Chicks are Here!!!!

This morning, I came into the classroom and saw this! EMPTY EGGSHELLS!! The chicks began pecking away yesterday, but this morning THREE of the eggs turned into chicks!

They are so cute. Poor things are so tired from all of the pecking to get out of their shells! We are going to leave them in the incubator until their feathers are fluffy and dry. Hopefully sometime this afternoon we can move them.

They are making their cute little peep noises all morning long. We are all really excited to hold them and watch them grow. For now, they are pooped. So we enjoy watching them through the incubator window.

When their feathers are fluffy and dry, we will move them to the BROODER BOX. We learned all about the BROODER BOX yesterday. Some important things which need to be part of their brooding box are:

1. Water- the chicks can easily drown at such a young age, so we made sure to put rocks in their water dish to help prevent that from happening.

2. Food- PSU gave us some chick food to keep in the corner.

3. Pine Shavings- this is will help the chicks not to slip and slide on the bottom surface. The pine shavings provide a soft place to lay and it helps hold the heat to keep the chicks warm.

4. Heat lamp- the chicks are still very cold and adjusting to life outside of their eggs. The heat lamp will help keep their brooding box warm and the chicks comfortable.

We will post some more pics once we move the chicks!!

Happy Thursday!

Fire Safety Week!

Last week was "Fire Safety Week"

The local fireman came to talk with our students about how to be prepared for a fire and how we can help to prevent fires.

The fire truck even made the loud siren noises and flashed its lights as it left the school!

Upper Leacock Fire Company is the local one here in Leola.

 Each of the men introduced the students to some of their equipment and their favorite tools.



They also showed us all of the gear they wear and how to put it on!

The students had a chance to sit inside of the truck and feel like a real fire fighter!

(Kelly, Gabriel, Zac)

The students also had a chance to use the hose! Fire Fighters have to be really strong. The hose was really powerful.

(Gabriel)

(Zac)

(Justin)

The 3rd graders standing in front of the truck.

Stephanie trying out the hose!

Some more students inside of the truck!

(Stephanie, Anna, Steven and Jessica)

Janae using the hose.

Johnny giving it a try too!

We are really thankful for our fire fighters who risk their lives to take care of our families! We learned that our smoke detector batteries should always be active and that we need a plan for our family in case we would be in an emergency situation.

WHAT'S YOUR PLAN?



Justin's Post!

Mrs.Herr was very, very, very nice on Wednesday.She let us write what ever we wanted in our chit chat jounal. I wrote about the future. The Phillies won the World Series!

-justin

BAKE SALE TOMORROW

Tomorrow is our 3rd grade bake sale! Please bring/send in your cookies, brownies, cupcakes tomorrow morning so we can be prepared and ready to sell at lunch time! Thank you so much ahead of time!! We look forward to supporting our Compassion Child Julio for the month of October!!!

Mrs. Herr

Steven's Post

"We've been turning eggs this month. I hope you like turning and taking care of your eggs! The eggs felt warm and healthy."

-Steven