Three years ago, I did a project I have always wanted to do with my students- we hatched chicks, well we tried to. Chicks take 21 days to grow in utero and then hatch. The project went beautifully. We shared it with a lot of the other children and teachers at our school; it was truly WONDERFUL. We watched the chicks growing inside (Did you know you can see inside the egg with a special light? We made one and could watch them moving inside! So utterly amazing and beautiful!) Then hatching day arrived and it was so amazing to watch. I stayed late that evening and watched almost all the chicks hatch successfully, only to come in the next day to disaster. My t.a. (God bless her) and I drove the dying chicks to a nearby vet and paid for them to be put to sleep. She and I stood there crying messes (me mostly) with a box of dead & dying chicks; it (I) was pathetic I'm sure!
I never did the project again; parents and students asked me to, but I've been too afraid. Jump ahead to last summer when I, for some strange reason, wrote a donorschoose grant proposal for an incubator and egg turner- it was funded. So now I'm about to start this project again. "Why?" I am sitting here asking myself. Why????
Because, Rebekah, you've always told your children and "your children" that they cannot let fear stop them, that they have to always keep trying even when it's hard and they're afraid. So am I going to be a good role model or am I going to just be another person who talks the talk but doesn't "walk the walk?"
So, tomorrow we fire up the incubator, build a wet bulb thermometer and prepare to receive a batch of chicken eggs that will- PLEASE GOD- hatch successfully in three weeks into some cute and fuzzy chicks. If you are a praying person, please, please please pray for my chicks, for my students and others who may visit, and for me (to be brave and not a nervous wreck!), but mostly please pray that our chicks hatch well and have no complications like the last time but have a high survival rate this time around. I will be more crushed than I can say if disaster strikes again.
And this week, I will share those old, original posts for myself and anyone else who wants to go there with me. I need to remind myself of the wonder and beauty and joy of life and the amazing lesson I learned from a 5 year old last time around.
post # 1 from May 2007- Embryology 101
Until next time, hope you have a blessed, wonderful, happy week!
Love,
BekaBoo :)
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