Caffeinate and Teach

A few weeks ago, as a school family we raised money for and purchased two guinea pigs. Their names are Pearl and Roxy and they are a wonderful addition to our school family! They have been so much fun and have provided so many opportunities for the children to work on their observation skills. These skills will serve the children well as they continue with their academic careers. What may appear to be only "watching" the guinea pigs and seem as if it is just a "fun" addition to the everyday in's and out's of the classroom, these skills are important for aiding the children in being able to produce higher level cognitive skills, science skills such as hypothesis and more! During these observations, children have been practicing comparing and contrasting, attention to detail and delayed gratification as they wait for Pearl and Roxy to explore something new in their playpen or "popcorn: (which is basically "popping" around like jumping because th...

Last week, I told you all about the journey of choosing which school family pet we would get. This week, I would like to show you some fun pictures of them and tell you about how we named them! We got two female guinea pigs and they are as sweet as can be! They are young, which is helpful for the adjusting to the noise level in a preschool classroom and helps them in getting to know us and feeling safe. We were able to purchase a play pen for them to play in and to make it easy for us to observe them as a school family. Pictured below are the girls playing with jingle balls and eating hay. They eat A LOT of hay! We started trying to figure out what to name them and found a list of influential women who have been a part of the University we are a part of. We chose four names for each of the guinea pigs from that list. Then we started the voting process. We posted the name choices on the door of our classroom along with a color coded key and colored sticker dots. We allowed the ...

A couple of weeks ago, the children in my classroom abruptly stopped wondering about dinosaurs. I was secretly okay with this ;)  All of a sudden we began to talk about getting a school family pet. Last year I had hamsters in the classroom, two separate occasions and both times, they died. :( I was willing to try again, and my co-teacher and I began to do some research on what the best pet would be for preschool children. A few options were on the table.... Chinchillas, Sugar Gliders, Rabbits and Guinea Pigs. We found out that Chinchillas have hollow bones like birds, and we as preschoolers could literally crush their bones if we hugged them or pet them too hard. So, they were out! Sugar Gliders are extremely expensive and are nocturnal, so they were out too. We had to chose between rabbits or guinea pigs. Through our research we found that guinea pigs are awake up to 20 hours a day, are extremely social and are excellent pets for children. So, guinea pigs it was! We also found out...