know what that means, but around here it means that school is ALMOST out! Nine
More days, nine more days….. It’s become my little mantra. Kind of like the
little engine that could…. without the awesome conductor and caboose… but I
digress.
May also means that it is time for another BRIGHT IDEA. So Here it goes:
Spring was made to teach science concepts. I mean what better way to teach
about life cycles and living and non-living animals and things than by looking
at these things first hand.
By Spring it feels like my kiddos and I are JUST hitting our stride. They know
what I expect and we have a good solid foundation to work on.
Last year my class watched a caterpillar grow into a butterfly.
This year I wanted to do something different. I had heard about classrooms
hatching baby chicks. This intrigued me. I went to Amazon and looked around for
incubators, knowing I would need one. Holy Guacamole! They are expensive. So
that Idea was out. Or so I thought.
I posted on my Facebook asking
if anyone knew of any way that I could make this happen…
To my surprise there was a way. I don’t know if this is every where or just in
Ohio, but we have what are called county extension offices. For $20 bucks I was
able to get 24 baby chick eggs, borrow an incubator, a brooding box, and chick
feed, to try to grow our baby chick eggs into actual baby chicks.
It’s an involved process. You have to turn the eggs over 3 times a day and put
water in the incubator, but when it was all said and done we had 6 baby chicks
hatch. Sadly 2 of them didn’t make it. But we have 4 that are alive and
thriving. We get to pick where they go to live out their lives too. 1 of my
students is taking 1 home and a few of my para’s are
splitting the remaining ones up. Needless to say it was an exciting few weeks
in my classroom. I have never seen so much excitement and learning from a unit.
It was such a wonderful process.
You may have read all of that and thought so what
exactly is my bright idea?
My bright idea is to learn to use the resources in your community. We as
teachers always feel like it is up to us to provide what our class needs to get
through the units and sometimes go broke in the process of trying to bring the
lessons to life. Remembering to reach out to people in your community can
connect you to valuable and time saving resources you never thought existed.
I hope you enjoyed my Bright idea.
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