June 21, 2019 -- Students in Jamie Blados’ and Julie Sokora’s classes at Gearity Preschool learned some important lessons about life, growth and disappointment this spring, all thanks to half a dozen duck eggs.

Ms. Blados’ father, a college professor, has a graduate student who raises ducks and gave the classes six eggs to hatch. The eggs were carefully placed in an incubator at Gearity in mid-April and the students began an all-important 28-day countdown. The children were prepared for the fact that not all six eggs were expected to hatch, so they created graphs to display their predictions.

The two classes also went on a field trip to Lake Metroparks Farmpark as part of their study of animals.

At the end of the 28-day incubation period, none of the eggs had hatched and Ms. Blados took them home for the weekend, still hoping it wasn’t too late. And it wasn’t, as two ducklings hatched on the 28th and 29th days.  

Students and their families received a message from their teacher over the weekend with a video sharing the happy news. They eagerly returned to school to meet “their babies” and had the chance to hold, pet and even name the fluffy ducklings, who will eventually be returned to the woman who raises them. One student captured the emotion of his classmates while playing with the ducklings when he said, “I’m so happy I could cry.”