Feeding My Habit
Magazines, TV, and the internet are wonderful resources, but I am convinced that children learn best by seeing and interacting with real, live animals. Many parents and co-workers know how strongly I feel about having pets in my classroom. It's amazing the way people will help out when they know about your passions.
When I first started teaching kindergarten years ago in Michigan, I set up the ten gallon aquarium that Bill and I had received as a wedding present, and stocked it with a handful of tropical fish. It wasn't long before my students' parents added a frog and other exotic fish to our tank. After I let the children and their parents know that we would welcome additional pets in our classroom, someone donated a guinea pig, which was a wonderful pet because the kids could hold it comfortably, and if it got away from them, it was big enough for us to find easily. Unfortunately, the guinea pig died when I sent him home with a kindergartner for the summer.
The father of one of my students, who worked in a lab at the local college, offered us some lab mice, with the condition that, whenever we felt like we had too many mice, he would take the extras back to the lab. This proved to be an awe-inspiring experience for all of us, since the mice provided a wonderful lesson in the life cycle of the species. We started with four or five mice in a ten gallon aquarium (without a lid, believe it or not.) Soon, the mice had babies, eight or ten squirming, pink, hairless little creatures, who grew into cute, miniature mice in just a week's time. It wasn't long before we had enough mice that every kindergartner could hold a tame little mouse, all at the same time, with many mice to spare. It was fun to predict the future colors of the pink babies; from pure white, to gray or black, to spotted mice, we had them all. And, the best part was, whenever we began to feel like our aquarium was being overrun, we just called for that dad to come and get our surplus mice, and then we started the process all over again. I taught two of his children, and we enjoyed the mice both of those years. I'm sure we raised hundreds of mice, who were probably destined to become food for the lab snakes, but in all that time, we only lost one, who was dropped into a heat register.
When Erin and Meagan were little, I taught part-time in many different schools, but it was several years before I had a classroom of my own again. In the meantime, we went through a series of pets at home. We've had dogs, cats, fish and snails, hamsters and mice, baby chicks, hermit crabs and fiddler crabs, toads, turtles, an iridescent lizard, and a yellow salamander that Bill brought home from a cable head end building in the middle of nowhere. Years after the fact, Erin hinted that her first goldfish, Swimmy Marie, may have met a premature death because three-year-old Erin was in the habit of sneaking her pet out of the fish bowl to hold it. When Meagan was raising a series of prize-winning 4-H rabbits, the whole family learned everything there was to know about rabbits. Family friends have many stories to tell about the times they took care of our pets for us when we were out of town, but only the lizard actually died while in another child's care. (Some little boys love caring for pets that require them to hunt for live food daily. In my opinion, that poor little lizard may have met his match with one too many over-sized grasshoppers.)
Now, in my preschool classroom, I find that I have a menagerie of pets once again, thanks, in part, to a few zealous parents, grandparents, and para-professionals who contribute to my habit. As usual, I started with an aquarium, often stocked with fish from my backyard pond. (Three or four years ago, every goldfish in the tank was named Nemo.) We've gone through a series of donated hamsters, but I think that we've finally found the perfect, child-proof and escape-proof cage, purchased at a garage sale by Laura Beth, one of our aides. Our fire-belly toad, Toby, and his terrarium mate, a hermit crab named Shelly, are popular with all of the students. Shelly thrives on lunch leftovers, but I've resigned myself to buying crickets once a month, year-round, for the carnivorous toad.
The grandpa of two of my students is a science teacher at the high school. I know him quite well, because he was Meagan's high school pole vault coach, and a favorite teacher for both Erin and Meagan. When his granddaughter was first in my class, he sent two Madagascar hissing cockroaches (big bugs) with her for Show and Tell for B week, along with the message that we were welcome to keep them. I'm sure he expected us to send them back in a hurry, but we've enjoyed watching those bugs ever since. They don't really do anything except sit around on their pine cones, eating dog food and fresh fruit. We keep the aquarium covered only to prevent little hands from injuring the cockroaches. I've never heard them hiss.
Just last week, Tamika, an occasional substitute para-professional, gifted us with a box turtle. After nearly hitting it with her car, she brought it over and found a cardboard box for a temporary home. This weekend, after I researched appropriate turtle habitats and feeding habits, Levi helped me set up a new aquarium for the turtle. So far, the nameless turtle is thriving on a diet of lettuce and apple slices. Later on, we'll ask some kids to bring him some worms. He (it?) is receiving plenty of attention at preschool. By the end of the week, he'll even have a new name.
In recent years, I've been offered a rather large coral snake and a six-foot boa constrictor, but I do know where to draw the line. No snakes!
Right now, I think our classroom has enough pets. But I'm sure we'll witness some normal life changes this year. One or two pets will die natural deaths and will be replaced with new pets. The lesson will be clear--life goes on.
When I first started teaching kindergarten years ago in Michigan, I set up the ten gallon aquarium that Bill and I had received as a wedding present, and stocked it with a handful of tropical fish. It wasn't long before my students' parents added a frog and other exotic fish to our tank. After I let the children and their parents know that we would welcome additional pets in our classroom, someone donated a guinea pig, which was a wonderful pet because the kids could hold it comfortably, and if it got away from them, it was big enough for us to find easily. Unfortunately, the guinea pig died when I sent him home with a kindergartner for the summer.
The father of one of my students, who worked in a lab at the local college, offered us some lab mice, with the condition that, whenever we felt like we had too many mice, he would take the extras back to the lab. This proved to be an awe-inspiring experience for all of us, since the mice provided a wonderful lesson in the life cycle of the species. We started with four or five mice in a ten gallon aquarium (without a lid, believe it or not.) Soon, the mice had babies, eight or ten squirming, pink, hairless little creatures, who grew into cute, miniature mice in just a week's time. It wasn't long before we had enough mice that every kindergartner could hold a tame little mouse, all at the same time, with many mice to spare. It was fun to predict the future colors of the pink babies; from pure white, to gray or black, to spotted mice, we had them all. And, the best part was, whenever we began to feel like our aquarium was being overrun, we just called for that dad to come and get our surplus mice, and then we started the process all over again. I taught two of his children, and we enjoyed the mice both of those years. I'm sure we raised hundreds of mice, who were probably destined to become food for the lab snakes, but in all that time, we only lost one, who was dropped into a heat register.
When Erin and Meagan were little, I taught part-time in many different schools, but it was several years before I had a classroom of my own again. In the meantime, we went through a series of pets at home. We've had dogs, cats, fish and snails, hamsters and mice, baby chicks, hermit crabs and fiddler crabs, toads, turtles, an iridescent lizard, and a yellow salamander that Bill brought home from a cable head end building in the middle of nowhere. Years after the fact, Erin hinted that her first goldfish, Swimmy Marie, may have met a premature death because three-year-old Erin was in the habit of sneaking her pet out of the fish bowl to hold it. When Meagan was raising a series of prize-winning 4-H rabbits, the whole family learned everything there was to know about rabbits. Family friends have many stories to tell about the times they took care of our pets for us when we were out of town, but only the lizard actually died while in another child's care. (Some little boys love caring for pets that require them to hunt for live food daily. In my opinion, that poor little lizard may have met his match with one too many over-sized grasshoppers.)
Now, in my preschool classroom, I find that I have a menagerie of pets once again, thanks, in part, to a few zealous parents, grandparents, and para-professionals who contribute to my habit. As usual, I started with an aquarium, often stocked with fish from my backyard pond. (Three or four years ago, every goldfish in the tank was named Nemo.) We've gone through a series of donated hamsters, but I think that we've finally found the perfect, child-proof and escape-proof cage, purchased at a garage sale by Laura Beth, one of our aides. Our fire-belly toad, Toby, and his terrarium mate, a hermit crab named Shelly, are popular with all of the students. Shelly thrives on lunch leftovers, but I've resigned myself to buying crickets once a month, year-round, for the carnivorous toad.
The grandpa of two of my students is a science teacher at the high school. I know him quite well, because he was Meagan's high school pole vault coach, and a favorite teacher for both Erin and Meagan. When his granddaughter was first in my class, he sent two Madagascar hissing cockroaches (big bugs) with her for Show and Tell for B week, along with the message that we were welcome to keep them. I'm sure he expected us to send them back in a hurry, but we've enjoyed watching those bugs ever since. They don't really do anything except sit around on their pine cones, eating dog food and fresh fruit. We keep the aquarium covered only to prevent little hands from injuring the cockroaches. I've never heard them hiss.
Just last week, Tamika, an occasional substitute para-professional, gifted us with a box turtle. After nearly hitting it with her car, she brought it over and found a cardboard box for a temporary home. This weekend, after I researched appropriate turtle habitats and feeding habits, Levi helped me set up a new aquarium for the turtle. So far, the nameless turtle is thriving on a diet of lettuce and apple slices. Later on, we'll ask some kids to bring him some worms. He (it?) is receiving plenty of attention at preschool. By the end of the week, he'll even have a new name.
In recent years, I've been offered a rather large coral snake and a six-foot boa constrictor, but I do know where to draw the line. No snakes!
Right now, I think our classroom has enough pets. But I'm sure we'll witness some normal life changes this year. One or two pets will die natural deaths and will be replaced with new pets. The lesson will be clear--life goes on.
We often see turtles on the road around here. Have been told they're typically female, looking for a place to lay eggs. Don't know if that's true, but it seems plausible.
ReplyDeleteWe see plenty of turtles along the roads here, too. We're close to the river, which doesn't hurt. Some people call them box turtles, others call them sand turtles or painted turtles. We were a little surprised to find that our new pet likes to swim. To reinforce literacy skills, we'll ignore the turtle's sex (as if we have a choice), and give it a rhyming name, like Myrtle, or an alliterative name, like Tommy.
ReplyDelete