Killed a baby chick today

In my grade 1 classroom, we are knee deep in growing things. We are watching tadpoles grow legs. We are watching silkworms molt and prepare to cocoon. And our tour de force incubator act includes (d) 15 chicken eggs and 5 duck eggs. Many other classes have come by and watched while I candled eggs to show them the growing embryos-- extremely cool thing actually to be able to seeing the developing baby fetuses.

Anyway, after the students of 2C left, I realized that I couldn't see anything in two chicken eggs. Having read that that was probably a sign of a non developing embryo, I culled them from their siblings and opened the eggs. The first egg that I opened had a barely developing yolk and had indeed stop developing. In the toilet went that one. The second egg, however, was hard to open and had a thick sac-- that should have told me that I was doing something that should never be done, particularly during Holy Week. So, once the egg was opened, what's a girl to do? I cracked the shell further and discovered to my horror a small black chick with a beating heartbeat--- AAAAAAA. I cried out and stashed it into the trash can in the bathroom. Then, like, Lady MacBeth, I washed my hands over and over. I just can't believe that I, protector and lover of all things small and furry, killed a chicken fetus. Just can't believe I did that... What if that was the only viable egg and now it's gone?? I have vowed to stop handling the eggs all together. Just so wrong....

Who needs a mini van?

Here are Vic and I returning from the local grocery store for our Sunday shop. Yes, that is a full set of 10 rolls of toilet paper in my lap. Fortunately, we have that super handy front basket for the perishables. We had the guard at our apt complex take this picture. He was chuckling, too!

Model United Nations, 2011, SIS

Model United Nations is an afterschool activity that Renata participates in. She has been busy for about a month preparing to represent India in the two areas of education and child soldiers. She has done a lot of research on India's literacy rates and % of child soldiers. Pretty cool stuff.

Yesterday she and her brother participated in the Model United Nations for southern China hosted at her school. Luca was a page for social and economic council as well as human rights council. Both of the kids are seated in the second row up-- she is two from the left and he is nine from the left. At the end, kids are elected by their peers for different titles. Renata was elected "Nicest" and "Most Likely to be Secretary General some day". She wanted to be elected "Hottest" but that went to another deserving middle schooler. She did score highly for "Best Informed Delegate" as well.

Next year when she is in high school, the Model UN is held in Singapore. Cool!! Luca will be a delegate when he is 7th grade as well.

Pretty proud of our kids today!!!