It's Happening

 The day had finally arrived.. the much-anticipated arrival of the baby chicks.  I saw the small cracks the night before and the excitement had built to an overwhelming crescendo.  I took a bazillion pictures from different angles so that I could see if the eggs moved or if the cracks got bigger.  I made sure the nest camera was on, and I left for school.

The drive to school seemed like a hundred miles instead of the fourth of a mile drive that it was.  The blistering wind did not faze me as I rushed into the building to get the live feed going.  The smartboard seemed to take forever to turn on and then, of course, the school firewalls blocked me from logging into the app.  I  quickly realized I would have to use the link I sent the kids... I can't find the link... OH MY GOSH.. whew I found it.  I clicked the link and there they were.. the eggs.  Everything was the same.. no new cracks that I could see. Glad I didn't miss anything!

The kids started to arrive a little bit later.  They couldn't contain their excitement.  They had all been watching the live feed before they left for school.  "Mrs. Garrison.. one egg has a crack!" "Mrs. Garrison, did you see that the crack is bigger?" " Mrs. Garrison,  an egg has a crack!"  And on and on the kids went as they entered our classroom with overwhelming excitement, joy, and wonder.  They stood transfixed at their desks or moving as close to the smartboard as they could get. I knew right then and there that we were not going to get much done.

We paused the feed for the morning announcements but quickly pulled it back up when they were over.  The blue and green groups quickly changed classes and sat transfixed watching our chicks.  'Oh my gosh.... that one egg is really rocking!" "Look, that one has a bigger crack!"  By now, we could tell that one of our eggs was going to hatch quickly.  I ran next door to make sure my partner teacher was watching.  She quickly stopped working on math and drew their attention to the smartboard.  

The eight kids with me (the poor target kids were missing all the fun- although, I did share the links with their teacher) were jumping up and down.  Like literally jumping up and down on the black and white carpet.  Squeals of delight could be heard from both classes... the noise increasing as the chick pipped his way around the egg. "Ahhh - look at that..." " Look, it's really cracking"  "OOOH - it has the egg open"  "Ahhhh - I can see it..."

Finally, our first little baby hatched.  It was so exciting... how many people can say that they watched a chick hatch?  We can!! What a wonderful experience for my fourth graders.  Needless to say, we spent the rest of the day watching our new baby get his "sea legs" and dry off.  But wait... is that another crack?