Taking the chicks "home"

Today we took the chicks back "home" and got to meet the mothers and fathers of the chickens. It was really neat to see the adult chickens. Maddie was happy to see them but slightly nervous as well.....her buddy Micah told tales of roosters not being very nice. She did manage one picture though!

We learned more about keeping chickens too while we were there. The chicks were certainly ready for a new place. In the last few days they have grown real feathers and lost some of their downy feathers. They were also testing their wings which made me nervous! I thought for sure we were going to wake up or come home to chicks on the loose in the house. Fortunately that didn't happen...everyone stayed where they were supposed to be! A couple of times I told Maddie and the other kids to please come play with the chicks and tire them out. Who would've thought I would be worrying about tiring out real chicks! Here are some pictures we took to show the new feathers.

Aren't they cute? Maddie was also excited to meet Tosa, a newfoundland dog, who lives with the chickens. We have been reading various books about Lewis & Clark which is the end of Maddie's geography studies this year and was also in our history book. One of the books is called The Captain's Dog This book tells the story of Lewis & Clark's journey from the dog's point of view. Brian and I had tried to explain exactly how big Seaman would be to Maddie. Meeting Tosa brought it up close and personal for her. It was also interesting to see that Maddie was not shy with him either. Normally she wants to see and pet the dogs she meets but she is a bit skittish with them. I think this is mostly from lack of seeing any dogs on a regular basis. Amazingly she was happy to pet and talk to Tosa who took it all as his due just like all dogs everywhere. Maddie is really enjoying the Lewis & Clark unit. The other day she was organizing all the day care kids to play "Lewis & Clark" which confused them a bit. Since they are a good natured bunch they went along with it! Maddie was Sacagawea of course and went to look for roots to cook with Pompey!

We have just a couple more days of regular third grade schoolwork left to do. Somehow science got behind so we still have about 2 weeks left of that which is fun for all of us so no big deal! It will be nice to get a bit of a break. I have planned out some unit studies for the summer that are fun. They will keep our minds sharp and ready for 4th grade but hopefully it won't feel like it! I also remembered a bunch of Harry Potter science kits I ordered a while ago on clearance. I dug them out and we will be working on those too. They are based on the second book in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We were going to read that one this fall but I decided we would read it a bit ahead so we could get the point of the science kits a bit better. The other themes I have are things like crunchy cookies, hoppin popcorn, Davy Crockett and Magnificent Moon. They will be a lot of fun but first we will take a week or so of a well deserved break!