Cutie, Jessie and Fuzzie Travel Upstate!

Well, it had to happen at some point....our three ducklings have left school and gone upstate to live.  They will be living with the chickens we hatched last year at a PS58 family's house in the country!

Ready for an adventure, exploring the hallways!

Outside in the sunshine for the first time.

Waiting to get in the car!

We will all miss the ducklings but it is nice to know that they will have a larger space to live in and be with other ducks once they are big enough!

Our Ducklings are Getting Bigger!

Cutie, Jessie and Fuzzie are 9 days old and SO big now!  They still love hanging out together and exploring the science room!  They drink a container of water every four or five hours now.  They love to play in any kind of water and make an absolute mess in their brooder every day!

They are with us only for a few more days.  Then they are heading upstate with a PS58 family to live in the country with other ducks and our chicks (now chickens) from last year!  They will be missed for sure!

Looking out the door at the people walking by!

Nibbling on the swimming pool!

Checking out the classroom.

Drink and rest.  Drink and rest.

The Ducklings Take Their First Swim!

Cutie, Jessie and Fuzzie had their first swim during Pre-k's visit to the science classroom.  Those little ducklings had a great time!  They were a little nervous at first, especially when only one duck was in the pool, but once all three were in....they had a blast! 

Meet Cutie, Jessie and Fuzzy!

Cutie, Jessie and Fuzzy were taken out of the incubator at the end of the day today and put in the brooder (90 degrees inside).  I had to teach one of the ducklings, Cutie, how to drink water and eat food and then the other ducklings followed suit. They were fast learners. It is their first night outside of the incubator!

There is still one egg in the incubator.  Tomorrow is the actual hatch date, so we will see what happens.

The Ducklings Have Arrived!

I was so excited to see if any of the ducklings hatched that I got to work a half an hour early!  But when I arrived, I only saw....bigger pips on three of the eggs.

Three eggs ready to go!

You can see the ducklings beak on the left.

And out comes the duckling!

The first duckling hatched during science with K-127.  They came up with the name Cutie!

Half an hour later...duckling number two arrives!

They love to snuggle together.

They love to sleep together.

One more egg with a pip!

This silly duckling (#2) got it's head stuck in an empty shell!
I had to pull it off!

A Mother's Day Surprise!

Today is day 25 for the duck eggs.  Only three days before they hatch!  Today is the day I take the eggs out of the egg turner so that when the duckling start to hatch, they won't get caught in the turner.  I also increase the humidity level from 55% to 67% percent to help keep the duckling moist which helps with the hatching process.

Imagine my surprise when I looked in the incubator and saw that three of the eggs had pips (where the duckling pecks the shell to get out)!  Once you see the pip the duckling will hatch anywhere from 24 to 36 hours later.  I could even hear them chirping inside their shell!

Now we wait.......

Liquids in Containers

1st grade has been exploring liquids over the past few weeks.   We have learned the properties of liquids: bubbly, foaming, transparent, translucent and our favorite...viscous! We also know that liquids take the shape of their container.

So what happens when water is poured into four different sized containers?  We used a small vial to measure one scoop of water in each of the containers.  Then we drew where the water level was.  

The funnel helped get the water in the bottle.

That's one scoop of water!

Drawing the level of the water in the bottle.

Getting a good look at the water level.

Being as accurate as possible.

Next, everyone made a prediction about where a second scoop of water would reach in each of the four containers then added the scoop of water to see if they were right! 

It's easier to use your chair as a desk, so your
journal doesn't get wet!

How many scoops of water?

Will the water overflow?

The last part of the investigation was to think about whether all four containers had the same amount of water in them and to explain your reasoning.  Many of the students acknowledged that the containers were different shapes so the water looked different; some of the students stated the containers had the same amount of water because we used the same measurer for each of the containers; and others said there were different amounts of water in each container.

Balancing a Pencil on the Tip!

2nd graders have their biggest balancing challenge when trying to balance a pencil on its tip on top of a craft stick!  Can it be done?  Let's see!


First, the 2nd graders tried to figure out how to balance a paper pencil with an arm holding onto the pencil. They quickly discovered that one has to use clothespins to give it the needed weight to balance.

The placement of the clothespins is so important.

This pencil is balancing right on the tip.

With both clothespins below the balancing point,
the pencil balances the best.

We can even balance the pencil on our fingers!

Once everyone was able to balance the paper pencil....onto the next challenge, balancing a real pencil on its tip!  Now, in addition to the two clothespins, everyone also had a malleable wire to use when trying to balance the pencil!

Where to put the clothespins...on the pencil?

Where should the wire go?

Will this work?

Yes!  The pencil is balancing on its tip!

It's tricky to get the wire and the clothespins just right!

Yay!

I reminded the classes that balancing the paper pencil held a clue!

So exciting to finally figure it out!

Hard at work thinking about weight, counterweight and balance. 

Can it be done?  Yes it can!

The Duck Eggs are Half Way There!

Today is day 14! We started out with 10 eggs, but 2 of the eggs were not fertilized. We now have 8 eggs! Four of the eggs look pretty healthy, but I'm not sure about the other 4.  Fingers crossed!

This large egg was cracked by the egg turner. I read online, that wax
can help seal the cracks and prevent bacteria from getting in. 
We'll see if it works for us!

The way to check the growth of the duck embryo is to candle the egg.  To do that, I hold a flashlight on the egg and see how it looks inside!  The glow should be orangey red and you should see blood vessels.  At day 14, you might be able to see the ducks eye and even see it move around inside the egg!

This is a healthy egg.  You can see the blood vessels!

In 11 days I take the eggs out of the turner and place them on the mesh bottom of the incubator.  I also increase the humidity level from 55 % to 67%.  Then we will wait out the last three days until the eggs begin to hatch!

Our Wall Farm is Here and Growing!

After much anticipation, our Wall Farm is up and growing!  Through a grant from GrowNYC, PS58 has a Wall Farm that grows 51 plants in our school cafeteria. During gardening class with some of the second graders, we planted lettuce, chive, red basil, yellow peppers, chili peppers and cherry tomatoes.

The cork cover on the left is where the water is added.

These capsules hold the seed pods.

Once the wall farm is plugged in, the lights automatically turn on and off.  If anyone sees the light doing a "disco dance", they know that it's time to add more water to our wall farm!

Planting!

The bottom shelf is filling up!

 PS58 is excited for our plants to grow.

The dome over the pod helps keep the
moisture in.  Little lettuce sprouts!

5 Days later!

Once the leaves touch the dome, off it comes!

3 weeks later, our farm is really growing!

Tomatoes.

Red basil.

Chive.

Lettuce.

Yellow peppers.

Once the plants are big enough, they will either be planted in our school garden or be harvested for school lunches!