Another expert visits our classroom

Today we were so privileged to have Owen H's grandpa visit with both of our classes. Mr. Cavanagh is very knowledgeable about local animals. He discussed the different mammals, talked about what they ate and how they adapted and survived and showed us the fur of many of these animals. The students were fascinated to feel the fur of many of these animals. Thanks also to Mr. Cavanagh's wonderful assistants: Owen and Kaylah!

The fur from a large otter.

A wolf.

A skunk.

Look at the branch a beaver chewed!

An albino skunk!

Furry friends visit

On Friday, our chicks paid a visit to the classroom. The students were encouraged to touch them when the chicks came close with one finger. It is a special time for our students-just look at their faces!

Visit from an expert!

To coincide with the chicks hatching this week, (9 have hatched!), we were fortunate to have a visit from Alicia's grandpa-Steve Wendt. He is a scientist by profession, with a special interest in birds. He expertly taught us about how chicks develop inside the egg, showed us how to tell the difference between a raw and hard boiled egg, showed us the raw egg and explained about the different parts, talked about nest building, showed us a real ostrich egg and we could pet a real, but stuffed Great Grey Owl. The students were fascinated, and had some good questions after.

Breaking an egg.

An ostrich egg!

Did you know that an owl has feathers that are softer than most other birds? Steve taught the kids that they had soft feathers so that when they were flying down in order to hunt some prey, their feathers made very little noise in flight!

Hatching day!....day 2

Finally...it's really hatching day! As of noon today, we had 2 chicks hatch! There are at least 3 more coming! We went and saw them and touched some of the eggs that are beginning to hatch. It's amazing, you can hear them peeping while still inside the egg.

Hatching day'

Well...we have 14 eggs in the incubator, anxiously awaiting their arrival. We rather expected to see some small peck marks today...but alas...nothing yet! Instead, the swallowtail butterfly chrysalis that I had kept since last August hatched! We watched a time lapsed video about the full transformation, then got to see both the chrysalis and butterfly up close.

There were 3 chrysalis on the single twig. One had died, one is going to hatch, and one had already hatched.

We found out that the butterfly had to pump it's wings in order to get the blood through it, resulting in it's wings expanding and growing. It was also exercising it's proboscis (the long thread like thing that it uses to suck up nectar). 

A cow comes to school!!!!!!

What an "udder-ly" wonderful afternoon we had! We had a visit from the dairy educator. She spoke about the qualities of milk, it's nutritional value and all the dairy products we consume.

Her cow "Marmalade"!

Doing the milk shake dance.

Feeling what it would be like to be milked!

To enhance the experience, Mrs. Eastman brought in a 2 month old Holstein calf. We all got to touch and pet the young calf.

A few pics from Spirit Week

Just thought that we'd share some of the pictures from last week's Spirit week.

Crazy hair/crazy hat day!

Plaid day

PJ day

Sports day

Blue and green day (Earth day)

As a finale to our week, it was so great to see so many of our families at Stonecrest's dance Friday night!