In Like a Lion ... Out Like a Lion?

If old man winter blows March with a lion's war then like the little lamb March leaves peacefully.  I enjoy sharing this folklore with my students, in like a lion and out like a lamb. We mark the passage of March with these adorable lion and lamb calendar numbers from TeachersPayTeachers. Even in third and fourth grade my kids like to vote on if it is a lion vs a lamb day.

Most years it seems that March does follow this pattern, but not this year. Nope! This year we are entering like a lion and if weather hold, we will leave like a lion. Only two more days March, let's see if we can leave like a lamb shall we?

Pets in the Classroom .. Good idea?

I think that having pets in the classroom can truly enhance a child's school life. Most children enjoy animals and find watching them to be interesting and engaging. Animals in the classroom offer teacher real life examples to use during teaching. Of course it is easy to see how they enhance science, but they are useful for writing, math, reading, and other subjects as well. Exposure to animals teaches kids many life lessons as well as academic ones.

I always have fish in my classroom. They are fun to watch and come in so many varieties. Fish have a calming effect on the classroom, from the soothing sound of water to watching them swim around their tank. Other animals are fun to watch also. Our hamster, Fluffy, likes to stuff her cheeks with food and hide it away. Our former hamster, Matilda, used to run on her wheel, much to our enjoyment. Our chinchilla takes the cake when she runs around the classroom during our math lesson. She likes to sniff the kids and run between their desks. I have more than one student that runs to check out the pets first thing in the morning.

Some teachers leave their pets at that level of involvement, I don't. I actually use my animals in lessons for example; compare and contrast two fish. Children carefully observe two fish, draw them, make a Venn diagram, and finally write a paragraph comparing and contrasting the two. Adaptations? Looking at Charlotte the chinchilla and Fluffy the hamster, we discuss the environment these two animals live in and what adaptations they have to help them. Science is easy, but what about reading? As we read Humphrey the hamster stories, the kids make connections to our own hamster. We use the fish tank to talk about fractions (what fraction of the fish are tiger barbs?).

Incidental learning and teaching in the moment is another plus of having pets in the classroom. The students are always noticing something new. Why does the bigger tank have a heater and the gold fish doesn't? Why is the fish tank green and we aren't using the filter? (Because the fish got sick and the carbon in the filter would remove the medicine.) Kids naturally ask question about things around them. (What are those little brown things? Poop ... ewwww)

Academic learning is not the only kids of learning kids do at school. There are a lot of life lessons to learn. The most obvious, and sometimes the most painful, is the lesson of death. Fish can die of no apparent reason. Sometimes something serious happens to the environment and you can have many fish die at one time. Lessons: living things die and changes in the environment effects living things. Kids are often not as attached to fish as they are to other creatures. Hamsters also have a short life span. This year our former hamster Matilda died of old age. Having to explain to children why their pet that they held and cared for is no longer with us can be difficult. Lessons learned: animals can die from old age, how to grieve. For Matilda we had a ceremony and burned letters the kids wanted to "send" to her. We will use the ashes from those letters to plant flowers this spring.

Pets in the classroom can be little more than a decoration or very much apart of the daily doings in a class. It is up to the teacher how much or how little to use the pet in the classroom. We know that it is helpful to students to make connections between what they are learning and what is going on in their own lives. Pets help to make many more connections. Plus, I love to see Charlotte's little face when I get to school in the morning. Oh and my black goldfish "wagging" his tail in greeting. I can't forget Fluffy looking for food either! And then ...

Chi... chi... chi... Chinchilla!

This the the chant of my students now when Charlotte is brought up. Personally I came up with a new version of Mary had a Little Lamb

Mary had a little chinchilla, little chinchilla, little chinchilla
Mary had a little chinchilla, who's fleece was gray as soot

It followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day
It followed her to school one day, it was not against the rules

All the children laughed and played, laughed and played, laughed and played
All the children laughed and played to see a chinchilla in school.

They still like the play on the Chia Pet jingle better. Oh well, they are kids.

Charlotte does bring up a good number of discussion and leads to a bit of creativity. She lends herself to "teachable moments."  We have talked about using animals for fur, hunting to near extinction, animal adaptions (Why is she so fluffy? Wow is she fast!), and making up little ditties and rhymes.

One might ask, "Why would a teacher choose an exotic pet like a chinchilla for a class pet?" Well, I am an experienced animal keeper and keeping an exotic pet is appealing to me. She also had some traits that I really wanted in a classroom pet. Chinchillas are a lower odor pet compared to a guinea pig or rabbit. We have a classroom that gets very cold  over night in the winter and chinchillas are more likely to overheat than to be too cold. They don't shed very much and tend to lead to fewer allergies than a guinea pig. Chins (as they are affectionately called) are also very quiet .Although they are nocturnal she is known to be active when I first get to school and if the students are particularly quiet she likes to peek her head out.

Are they the perfect classroom pet? No. I don't believe that there is a perfect classroom pet. Guinea pigs are much more interactive, but tend to lead to allergies. Rabbits are more tolerate of petting, but also very stinky. Hamsters are more compact and easier to care for, but they are very short lived and not active at all during the day. Fish lead to zero allergies and active all the time, but are difficult to take out and play with. In fact I highly discourage taking a fish out of the tank and trying to play with it. Every classroom pet has their pros and cons.

When thinking about getting a classroom pet the most important question for a teacher is what kind of pet do you want because when it comes down to it this pet will be 60% yours and only 40% the classroom. Summer and weekend care will fall on the teacher. The teacher will be ultimately responsible for the well being of the animal.

I will talk more about classroom selection and the different animals I have had as classroom pets. I will also talk about the ways to use a classroom pet in the classroom. They really can become an active and important part of the classroom.

Welcome

Chinchilla in the Classroom aims to be a helpful and colorful portrait of  a 3rd and 4th grade classroom with a chinchilla as a class pet.

Meet Charlotte:

She is a 7 year old chinchilla. Charlotte makes her home in the classroom during the week and then accompanies me home on the weekends. I plan on discussing more about keeping pets in the classroom, including chinchillas, in the near future. For now here she is and yes she often has that look of utter disdain.

In addition to being lucky enough to have a beautiful and exotic classroom pet, I am also fortunate to have a large beautiful classroom and a small number to students, 12 this year actually. Nicely split between 3rd and 4th grade.

I am really excited to share my pets, projects, and kids with you. I hope it will be a mutual learning experience!