Hawley Elementary School kindergarten teacher Deborah Pond smiled with pride when she explained how well her students recently handled having an incubator with chicken eggs in it in the classroom.

The eggs and the incubator were given to the class by Judit DeStefano, a mother of one of the students in the class. Mrs Pond said Ms DeStefano received the eggs from a friend and loaned the incubator out from a website, mypetchicken.com. Mrs Pond said the website has a program that loans incubators to school.

“It’s just been amazing,” said Mrs Pond, after describing all of the lessons she was able to teach her kindergarteners.

The incubator was in the classroom for 21 days, according to Mrs Pond, and on Tuesday, November 18, the eggs began to hatch.

The following day, Mrs Pond was ready to teach her students another lesson: how to carefully hold newborn chicks.

She used a stuffed animal bunny to show her students how to hand-hold the chicks gently with both of their hands. She told them the chicks are “very fragile.”

Paraeducator Marianne Grimaldi helped Mrs Pond oversee the students holding and sharing the six chicks between the 15 students.

“We’ve been waiting for this for six weeks,” said Mrs Pond after retrieving the chicks from beneath a heater that is their new home.

Mrs Pond said any teachers interested in learning more about the incubator lending program through mypetchicken.com can e-mail her at her school e-mail, lubind@newtown.k12.ct.us.