Day Nine to Fourteen!

Well it's been a whole week since we were last able to write. So I thought I'd do the update today and then the kids can get back into it again tomorrow. We last wrote on a Friday, then we had a long weekend. So Tuesday was the first day back in the classroom but I was on release and then yesterday we had a trip to Lake Rotokare. While all that was going on I've had a few problems with the actual blog. I won't bore you with the details but hopefully now you'll all be able to view and make comments!  Fingers and toes crossed.
So, as for the chickens, they only have a week left until hatch day. The kids are making a proposal in the form of an i-movie for Mrs Waite and Mrs Stark, with the desired outcome that we are allowed to keep the chickens at school long term. We have had a big brainstorm session today and the kids have decided the best option would be to get their dads to help us build a coop from scratch - assuming our proposal is accepted - so watch out dads (and mums of course).  I'll let whomever writes tomorrow fill in the details but I'm very impressed with the kids overall thought process.
The embryos themselves are really starting to look like real chickens now - our development chart states that the chick is turning itself so that its head is facing the large end of the egg.

Day Ten of Blog and Day Eight of Eggs

 Today room 4 learnt a thing or two about the incubation,we learnt that when we turned the eggs you have to take the lid right off because we have a loose screw and it will fall out if we don't hold the lid carefully. Day 8 is when the feather tracts start to be seen and inside the egg looks quite colourful.  Watch out for day 9's photo of the chick because it starts to look ugly! Room 4 is thinking of doing proposal for Mrs Waite and Mrs Stark to ask if we can keep the chicks at school. We will start planning our proposal next week after we finish our research presentations. 
By Hollie and Arnika

Day Nine of Blog and Day Seven of Eggs

Today the comb growth begins and they're getting their egg tooth. Most Chicks are hatched at a chicken hatchery before going to farms. Baby chicks are kept in brooders.
Chicks stay warm and safe in the brooders.
Chicks grow very quickly and they have all their feathers fast. Young hens are called pullets.  We wish the egg would hurry up and hatch!
From Isabel and Emma.

Day Eight of Blog and Day 6 of Eggs

Today Hollie and Jessica had to turn the eggs over.  Mrs Hancock is going to put some water in with the eggs so that the shells don't get too hard for  the chicks to chip their way out at hatching time.

 The chicks inside the eggs are starting to get their beaks and starting to move. Room 4 are thinking of getting a big cage so we can fit all of the chicks that have hatched in it.  It takes 21 days for a chick to hatch in an incubator. Some of us each day have to turn the eggs because the incubator hasn't got a automatic turner! We have about 40 eggs in the incubator! Mrs Hancock is going to nearly have more chicks in her class than children in her class if they all hatch. Our class wrote         chicken stories in writing and we might share some on here.  We are making pompom chicks in art and will take photos of the finished chickens and post them on here.                                                                                                                           By Pascoe and Millie.

Day Seven of Blog and Day Five of Eggs

Today the appearance of the elbows and knees are starting to show up. Do you know that chickens have elbows? Well they do.
The eggs are going pretty well so far in the incubators.We are still deciding what to do with the chickens once they hatch.We have a few ideas so far.So far the only ideas we have is Koen deciding to have scrambled eggs, Abbie deciding to run a business on the side of the school gate, and Gus suggesting to make a chicken coop at school for pet chickens. By Koen and Arlo

Day Six of Blog and Day Four for Eggs

On Saturday when it was calf and lamb day Mrs Hancock turned the eggs in one of the incubators and checked the other one if the automatic turner was working. Our research has been going quite well and we are learning a lot. This morning we filled both incubators with water so the eggs won't die and don't get too hot. Now the eggs are starting to form into chicks. Today if we cracked the eggs we would be able to see the blood vessels and the beginning of an eye. The chicks take 21 days to hatch and we are up to day four. By Troy and Leah.

Day five

Today we were waiting for Mr Mitchell to bring in his incubator for us to use it because ours is not working. When he bought it in we were all so happy! We now have got an incubator and have each put one egg in it. Hopefully on the 7th of November we will have chicks. We hope all of our eggs hatch because we love having eggs in our class because we always get to write a blog for all of you to read.

By Abbey and Libby

Mrs Hancock says - Hmmm think we're actually going to have two incubators going now!! Think I've worked out what was wrong. So now we have about 50 plus eggs waiting to turn into fluffy yellow chicks. Madness. Never mind, the kids are so excited and with this many eggs we're sure to get some chicks - unless there's a power cut.....

Day four

Today Mrs Hancock fixed the incubator with the help of Mr Mitchell. But we are getting another incubator from Mrs Mitchell because we don't think our one is going that well.  Megan gave us a thermometer and in the morning we will see which thermometer  is working and which one isn't. We are putting some of Abbey and Heidi's, and Mrs Mitchell's eggs in our incubator. We will put the other eggs in the first incubator if we can get the temperature right. . Abbey and Heidi brought in their eggs today.  By Heidi and Roseabel

Day three

Well we got into class when the bell rang and we realised that Room Four's incubator was not there.     Mrs Hancock said that the incubator was not working, the whole class was very sad. Then Mrs Hancock looked on the computer and looked at incubators. There was nothing under incubator but we looked on trade me but they were too much money, so we looked for hours and hours on the computer.  Then Mrs Hancock  said when she was teaching at another school she rented an incubator to hatch eggs. Abbey made some phone calls but the hire place had closed down. Then we had some class time to research about chickens. We still couldn't get hold of an incubator though. Later in the day we found that Mr Mitchell has an incubator that is the same as ours. He is coming in tonight to see if he can fix it. If he can't then we might be able to borrow his own one. So by tomorrow we should know we've got an incubator.....By Abbie and Matthew

Day two

Today Abbie and Roseabel brought some fertilised eggs! We were so happy. In the morning we got a sticky note and we wrote what we know and what we want to know. The class wrote chicken stories and shared their stories to our class. Today we are going to put the eggs in the incubator if we can. The Turtles reading group is going to read the instructions to see how many eggs can go in it.

Day one

So today I put a box on the classroom floor and asked my class what questions they might have about the box and what might be in it. Some great questions were posed, then when the children realised I wasn't going to answer their questions, they began to find clues on the box as to what it might be. Before long they had discovered that inside the box was a chicken egg incubator.
My next question was - what will we do with it? After some more conversation the class decided that we should get some eggs (fertilised of course as someone pointed out) and see if we could hatch them. Then we'd need a cage to put the chickens in. So the first task the children have undertaken is to try and find some eggs. The children came up with some ways to find eggs so we'll wait and see how they go......