This was the week, where after 21 days, six classrooms around Vermilion County expected their little chicks in an incubator to start hatching. As Tom Fricke from the Vermilion County Farm Bureau explains, some teachers are frequent participants.
AUDIO: At the start of the school year we host our Ag in the Classroom open house, where teachers can sign up for classroom presentations on various ag topics, as well as our incubators. And yes, we do have a lot of teachers that do it every year, but we also have from year to year new teachers doing it as well.
In Amber Tutwiler’s kindergarten class at Edison School in Danville, they actually started hatching a little early. By Wednesday morning, 2o of the 24 eggs had hatched. Mrs. Tutwiler says, she participates in this a lot, and the kids always love it.
AUDIO: This is their first time experiencing the life cycle of a chick, and watching them actually hatch in the incubator.
(Left) Mrs. Tutwiler’s class at Edison School has been happily watching the little chicks come to life. (Right) Mrs. Tutwiler shows a picture of an egg in her classroom while it was getting ready to hatch.
And in today’s classrooms, while waiting for the chicks to hatch, there’s a little trick you can do with the teacher’s cell phone.
AUDIO: I put the light from the phone up to the egg. It’s called “candling.” And we’re able to see if a chick is developing inside; able to see wings, veins, the little air pocket at the bottom; in anticipation that they’re hatching soon.
Mrs. Tutweiler says her class will get to keep the chicks up until the end of next week, when spring break starts. She says two District 118 families have already stepped forward to offer homes for the little chicks.
(Left) Lydia Gouty and Royal Grimes gently hold two hatched chicks. (Right) Kenzie Kilgore and Princeton Diaz have their turns holding the chicks.
Other teachers in Vermilion County hatching eggs with their students have been Chris Jaruseski at Mark Denman Elementary, Larissa Post at Meade Park Elementary, Mindy Ohlmiller at Trinity Lutheran School, Megan Acton at Maple Grade School in Hoopeston, and Patti Bohlen at Armstrong-Ellis Grade School
