Eleven, Eleven Baby Chicks, Aaaah, aaaah, aaah

We jumped on an opportunity to rent an incubator and raise some chicks from eggs. We have done a whole unit on eggs and chickens.

We started with 18 fertilized eggs. We read all the instructions for the incubator which involved keeping a bottom tray partially filled with water to maintain humidity, maintaining a temperature of about 100 degrees F, and marking and turning the eggs daily.

Chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch. At day 6 we candled the eggs. We candled again at day 20 and removed two eggs that were obviously not fertile. On day 21 we started hearing cheeps from the incubator and saw tiny cracks in a couple of eggs. By the following evening, we had 11 healthy hatched chicks, and one that started hatching but didn't completely hatch.

We are keeping the chicks for a week then returning them and the incubator to the farm from which they came. They are so cute and fuzzy. They are relatively easy to care for. They need a heat lamp, water, and chick starter feed. We borrowed a cage to use as a brooder, and lined the bottom with pine shavings. Our two cats are very curious about them, but don't bother them much.

Our egg unit reading list:
Egg to chick by Millicent E. Selsam This is the most awesome book ever for this project. It shows the development of the chick at many stages. Be forewarned that is deals frankly with sexual reproduction.
The Chicken Book by Garth Williams
Chicks and Chickens by Gail Gibbons
An Extraordinary Egg by Leo Lionni

This is How Homeschooled Kids Start their Day

Holiday Photos

Thanks to my friend Alicia for these beautiful photographs.

Update

I'm so ashamed that I haven't updated this blog since September! It has been such a busy semester.

We have been taking a weekly Spanish class at the home of a local family. The class is great. The teacher uses lots of music and interactive games to get the kids really involved.

We have also been taking a weekly Physical Education class at a gym. The kids have been learning the basics of soccer, basketball and dodgeball. They love this class, even though it's hard for them to keep up with the older kids sometimes.

At home, we've been studying American history. Thing One has been learning about punctuation, alphabetization, addition in columns and place value, and practicing his writing. He has been learning some basic report writing skills, and basic research skills. In his free time, he loves to draw comic books and read, read, read. And his favorite privilege is playing video games on the computer, Wii, or dad's Ipod.

Thing Two has been absorbing alphabet letters and numbers at a rate that is sometimes disturbing (in a good way). He loves to practice writing on paper, and also in the air, making nice little sounds to go along with it. Reminds me of Victor Borge's classic act. Perhaps he's a kinesthetic learner?

We have had many great field trips. The most exciting were St. Mary's City Homeschool Day and Mount Vernon Homeschool Day. We enjoyed an art class at The American Visionary Art Museum, and a science class at The National Aquarium where we met the new octopus.

Type A Homschooling Mom

Wow, an article that I can totally relate to. This lady and I have a lot in common.

A Pet Problem

Not a usual school problem...the cat keeps sitting on the workbook! We had a good laugh over this one.

First Day of School

Wow! Where did the summer go? Trip to Louisiana to see friends and family, and attend my husband's 20th high school reunion. Two weeks of ice skating camp. Lots of long drowsy days reading and playing outside.

I've been working for weeks preparing curriculum for this upcoming school year. I decided on an overarching theme of "America", and we'll be doing units chronologically until January, when we'll start more "fun" units like baseball and apple pie.

New for this year: No TV until 3pm each day. Mom's been getting up at 6am to try and exercise and have a bit of quiet time to prep each day. Thing Two has his own set of four workboxes (he''ll be four in November). We'll be having "Triangle Time" each day (there are three of us so it makes more sense than "cirlce time") which will include some basic calisthenics. I have the day basically scheduled with school in the mornings and free afternoons. There's no more napping in our house, so afternoons are better now for errands, playdates, read aloud time, etc.

I don't know how moms of large families do it. I feel exhausted from prep work, and it's our first day! The kids aren't even awake yet!