Did you know we have some ducklings in nursery? We have been working hard using different mediums to create some amazing duckling art. 
We have done some duckling paintings and sticking pictures. 

For baking this week we obviously had to continue our theme of ducks. We made some yummy duck shaped short bread biscuits. 

We are all very excited to say that our ducklings are finally big enough to go swimming! We all thought it was so funny when they dived under the water and made lots of splashes. We also enjoyed watching the ducklings feet paddling under the water. 

The ducklings do get pretty tired after swimming so they can't stay in for too long. When they come out every duckling has to be towel dried. This is because they have been born in an incubator instead of a Mummy duck sitting on them and passing on her natural oils. When the ducklings are a little older they will develop their own oils and become a lot more water proof. 

We have now seen the arrival of two more ducklings joining our gang. Now we have Daisy, Blossom, Scrambles and Webster. They are all getting along lovely and become strong enough to move in to the brooding cage. This also means they are now strong enough to have cuddles! 
First to make sure the ducklings were all comfortable we sat in a circle with our legs crossed being as quiet and still as we could. We put the ducklings in the middle and sat very calmly waiting for them to come to us. After a little while they were happy to explore and we all managed to get a cuddle or a stroke. 

we were all so calm and gentle when holding the ducklings that some of them even fell asleep!

The long wait is over! This morning two of our ducklings have hatched. The first duckling to hatch was so quick out of their shell we didn't get there in time! The first duckling has been named Daisy. 
However, the second duckling was a little slower and we all got to watch and even catch a little video. 

Our second duckling has been called Blossom. All the names suggested in children's busy bee books have been written on small paper and pulled out of a basket every time a duckling is born. 
The ducklings are very sleepy after their hatching experience and will have to stay in the incubator for another 3-4 hours to sleep and recover. They enjoy cuddling up to each other a chirping at the others in their eggs. 

This morning we were very excited to see that our of our eggs have a little hole in them. When the ducklings are ready to hatch they will make a little hole which is called pipping. Once the ducklings have pipped it can take between 12-18 hours for them to hatch out fully. 
Hatching is very difficult and the ducklings get quite sleepy. They use a special hard part on the end of their beak called their 'Egg tooth' to crack away at the shell. But they have to take lots of naps in-between all the hard work. 

The long wait is over! This afternoon our duck eggs finally arrived. We get our eggs from a fantastic farm company called Incredible Eggs. The farmer very kindly dropped them off, set up the incubator and the brooding cage for us. Now we wait, we have 5 duck eggs which are expected to hatch around Wednesday this week. 

Today in food tech we made popcorn! We first learnt about where popcorn comes from by looking at the corn in a field. We then had a look at the kernels that they grow. 

Next we looked at the flavours we had to pick from sweet or salty. 

Next was time to pop it in the microwave. We all started to get very excited and very much enjoyed listening to all the popping sounds! The bag started to puff up and then the microwave pinged! It was ready to add to the bowl. 

Next was time to taste, and of course we had to watch something on the board while we crunched our popcorn. What a lovely treat it was! 

Something exciting is coming to nursery soon! Can you guess what it is? 

In nursery we have been making plans to build a worm home. We used this idea to help us work out what we needed. 

We then made sure to gather together all the things we needed. 
- Soil 
-Sand 
-Gravel 
-Grass & Leaves 
-A jar
We then worked together to assemble each layer of our jar. After the jar was completed we went out on our welly walk and hunted for worms. We found loads! 
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