Three More Days Before the Chicks Hatch!

Today the chick eggs were taken out of the egg turner and placed on the mesh floor of the incubator for the final lockdown!  Lockdown is when the humidity level is raised in the incubator to about 70% and the eggs aren't touched until they hatch!  Only 3 more days to wait!  We have been talking in class about the probability that not all eggs will hatch.  When eggs have been flown to their destination (as ours have) a 50% hatch rate is average!

Are they moving?

Looking at the eggs in the incubator.

The PK classes at the Annex came to room 112 to look at the eggs!

What do you think the chick looks like in the egg right now?

Three more days until we find out!!

This is what some of the PK think the chicks look like inside the egg!

Kindergarten is also learning about the life cycle of the chicken.

Two of the eggs have spots on them!

All the eggs are now out of the turner and are ready for lockdown!

The count down continues.

The brooder is ready for the chicks!

PS58's Garden Comes to Life!

After school gardening has started!  We have been busy cleaning the raised beds, adding new compost and planting plants!  

Two different types of lettuce that will
ultimately be harvested for our school salad bar!

Yikes! A baby slug!  Not in our garden!

Much better, one of many earthworms in our raised beds!

More earthworms helping our garden!

We even found a centipede!

Tomatoes and peppers.

We added kale and tomatoes!

Cleaning up leaves.

Planting basil because you can never have enough!

Tomatoes!

Time to water.

We have a special raised bed in our garden dedicated to Nadav from K-115. This garden will keep Nadav's memory alive in our hearts. 

K-115 worked together to get Nadav's garden ready. First they filled the raised bed with soil, then planted some of Nadav's favorite herbs and vegetables: sage, parsley, basil, peppers, eggplant and cherry tomatoes. And lastly, they watered all the plants. K-115 will continue to care for Nadav's garden through the year.

Planting herbs.

Three levels of plants!

Time to water!

Calling All Citizen Scientists!

I spotted two Monarch butterflies yesterday in Prospect Park!  It looks like they have migrated from Mexico and finally made it to Brooklyn!

Monarch Watch recently sent out an email requesting help from citizen scientists to help collect data on Monarch Butterflies in their area.  It is simple to record your observations and you will be helping scientists gather information about Monarch activity. http://monarchwatch.org/blog/2017/03/31/new-monarch-watch-citizen-scientist-project/

I have been recording my observations on Journey North. http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/monarch.html  There is even an app that you can download!

Water on Paper!

The last part of Kindergarten's wood and paper unit involved exploring what happens to paper when it gets wet.  Oh boy, that was fun!

We used the same papers as we used in the previous explorations: wax paper, paper towel, craft paper, newsprint, chip board, tag board, corrugated cardboard and cardboard.  Next, we used droppers to put water on top of the papers to see what happened!

The marker on the papers spread when it got wet.

I can push the water around on the craft paper.

The paper gets darker when it's wet.

The corrugated cardboard comes apart when it gets wet!

The paper is easy to rip when it gets wet.

The water is turning colors!

The paper is so wet.

It is SO much fun taking apart the corrugated paper!

The Chick Eggs Are Here!

Today I to North Salem, NY to pick up the chick eggs!  This year we have 10 Barred Rock eggs (from Idaho) and 10 Freedom Ranger eggs (from Pennsylvania).   

Some chickens wandering around at the egg pick up spot!

The eggs were carefully laid on the floor and survived a bumpy drive back to Brooklyn!

The eggs are protected in cartons and a plain old plastic bag.

 The eggs are placed on the egg turner in the incubator.  The optimum conditions for the eggs are 100F and between 45-55% humidity.  Now the count down begins.....21 days until they hatch!

20 eggs rotating!

PS 58 Earth Day Celebration!

Pre-K Makes Bubbles!

What fun we had exploring bubbles!  Pre-K already knew a lot about them. "They are round."  "They are sticky."  "They pop!"  

First we practiced blowing with a straw three objects: a feather, a styrofoam ball and a cotton ball.  The cotton ball was the hardest to blow, but the other two were kind of easy.

Blowing the styrofoam ball with a straw.

The feather moves so fast.

The cotton ball is hard to blow!

 Next we blew air into a cup of milk with a straw.  Wow!  Did we ever make a lot of bubbles! We also discovered that after a while, the milk doesn't make bubbles any more.  We're not sure why though....

A volcano of bubbles.

So, so, so many bubbles!

Our last exploration was making our own bubble wands out of pipe cleaners and blowing bubbles!  Some of the bubbles were so big.  We also saw rainbow colors on the bubbles.