Chick-Whispering

Many of you know that my youngest child goes to a cooperative nursery school. Despite choosing our kids' preschools based on money decisions and our lack of it, we've actually been very lucky in the quality of our children's preschool education. For those of you who don't know what a cooperative nursery school is, it is a nursery school where the parents are responsible for the running and upkeep of it. We have a teacher (two plus an assistant) plus there is always a parent helper. Each parent, in addition to a regular job, must participate (or provide someone else) in the classroom approximately once per month. The timing all depends on the amount of days in the school year and how many kids in the class. I think this year, I've been required once every two months.

My last parent helper day was yesterday and I was horrified to learn that the teacher expected me to wrangle the chicks. Yes, they have chicks. They get the eggs locally, put them in an incubator for 21 days and hatch chicks. They, then go to a farm to live happily, and this is an actual farm, not the euphemistic farm that other animals go to.

"You want me to...what?"

So, I talked to the teacher and the assistant, and was equally horrified to learn that the kids were NOT going to hold the chicks.

"What?!"

But...they're chicks. I brought my camera. The teacher was on my side, and the assistant was talking about the other teacher's concerns (the 4yo teacher, who usually runs the school/classroom procedures), but I prevailed, was told not to lose any chicks and that was that.

They were all put into a plastic swimming pool, and wandered around peeping. I've done this before - not the chick whisperer part, just the knowing what to do part. I told the kids that they could pet the chicks using one finger and to keep it to the chicks backs, avoid their heads. They were excellent listeners. One girl was a little rough, but I kept her close to me. I did manage to get a couple of pictures, which I will print out for those kids over the weekend.

And we only lost one chick. He jumped out of one of the kids' hands and ran in a circle before I scooped him up and dropped him gently into the pool. We had a good laugh and we agreed not to tell the teacher assistant.

They ended up with a total of 13 chicks, all black except one yellow one. This one happened to be the one that ran away. He is the true black sheep of the family apparently. All of the black ones had yellow markings in places, mostly on their faces, although one had a yellow belly and a couple had a tiny stripe on the tops of their heads. In fact, my favorite and the most cooperative with the kids was a little black one with a tiny yellow splotch on his head. Their feet are huge. Their beaks are also quite large compared to the rest of their faces and their bodies. Their faces are very owl-like, so I wonder if all birds have similar faces.

Two funny stories:One of the boys is a bit rough, and he likes to bang things. He was banging a wooden block against another (in another area of the classroom) and it sounded as though he were hammering a nail. All of the chicks stopped what they were doing, lifted their heads and looked towards the sound and became silent while they listened. It was something to see.

For cleaning up, the teacher puts on the Mary Poppins song, A Spoonful of Sugar, and I thought the chicks were cheeping along. We had to really listen to hear the music over the loud peeps.

And lastly, after being in the pool (don't worry - no water) for quite sometime, the chicks huddled together in groups to keep warm. Once they were put back in their brooder (box with a heatlamp), they all pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. It looked like the morning after at a frat party.