Chicken love

Hatching chicks

We had a very special delivery to Uxbridge on Monday. 10- eggs. but these were not yummy breakfast eggs that we get in the supermarket, they were fertilized eggs and they hatched out 10 beautiful fluffy chicks. We were so lucky to be able to see 4 of the 10 chickens hatch in front of us (keep an eye on the blog for  video to come). The excitement levels have been at an all time high. This has been a magical way to observe the children life cycle just as we have done with our tadpole to frog life cycle. It will be a fun week of chicken cuddles to come. 

Fossils

Last week Otto brought in something very special for us to keep here at Uxbridge....A real Fossil.
The children were fascinated to see the patterns and hear about how Fossils are created. Of course it sparked lots of conversation about dinosaurs and bones. We discussed how shells, and leaves could make fossils prints and how scientists can use these prints to tell a story and give them clues.

We had a go making out own fossils and they turned out great!!

Budding Entomologists

The children enjoyed becoming scientists who studied insects in the Uxbridge Science Lab.
Chloe wanted to create an office and rearranged some of our technology play to a table in the middle of the room. This sparked the idea of the Science Lab. Our scientists turned up ready for work. They had created names for themselves, some needed their own office space and made more offices, whilst others were happy to work in collaboration. It was learning on the job. Many pretend phone calls were coming in with questions about the insects. The team had to count legs to give back the information to the person on the phone, look in books and draw their specimens, some needed to write and some measured the weight of the rubber insects. Throughout the day the Science Lab Space caught the attention of many children who took on the character and immersed themselves in the role-play. Have a little look at them in action.

Cleaning the tadpoles!!

Cleaning and caring for our pets is an important part of the programme teaching respect and care towards our living creatures.  What super helpers we had here today!  We have been watching our tadpoles closely and one now has front legs!!  Cleaning their tank we got to take a closer look.  Our tadpoles are a little wiggly, they can be quite fast to catch.  Hey, What's that we notice?? - tiny sea snails and mosquito wrigglers??  The snail slowly slithers up the side of the tank, while the wrigglers just wiggle and wiggle, bobbing up and down in the water.  Where did they come from?? How cool is that! Our very own little Eco system inside our tank.  This will be interesting for us to watch.  I wonder what the wrigglers will turn into?  Will our snails grow?  Only time will tell, we will have to make a point of checking each day for changes.

Bee and insect house!

As pollinators bees play an essential role in our gardens.  They transfer pollen from one flower to the next, fertilizing plants so they may begin developing fruit and seeds.  Most plants require the help of pollinators such as insects and birds to develop.  Unfortunately bees and other beneficial insects are under increasing threat due to pesticides, parasites and climate change - but we can help them by planting flowers to attract them and by providing them shelter.

While at Bunnings Teacher Deanne came across a bee and insect house that
would be just perfect for this purpose and it also came with seeds, how fantastic is that!

We found a great spot for it to sit - Under our new garden arch that will soon be fully covered with Star Jasmine flowers and right in the middle of our flower garden.  Our mix of seeds that came with the bee and insect house included a range of flowers that will attract our insect friends, we each took turns to sprinkle some in the garden.  Once our plants are flourishing we will start to hear lots of buzzing in the garden!!  Yay!!

Thank you everybody for continuing to embrace the opportunities for us to grow and learn about the ways in which we can be great Kaitiaki's of our environment.

Baby Spiders

A spider had laid her eggs in our resource room and they hatched. Jo noticed dozens and dozens of spiderlings with their mother. Everybody was very excited to see them - most of us had never seen a baby spider before!