I don't remember having very many class pets when I was growing up, but I always thought it was a cool idea. Have you had class pets? I've had a few, gerbils and hamsters and fish, but there is quite a bit of upkeep. And when we were on tracks, we had to find a suitable zoo keeper. Some unfortunate pets did not make it to the next track. For me, it seemed like a lot of maintenance.
Introduce my sweet friend MaryBeth, who has a "stuffed" class pet named Leo. Leo is a lion who sets the tone of the classroom. Leo talks and Leo participates in class activities, and first graders are enthralled. I loved this idea, and proceeded to introduce my own class pet, Stanley, a stuffed dog. It didn't take long for the kids to fall in love with him. He even is in many of our class books. When we took pictures of each member of our class reading their favorite book, they insisted that Stanley get his own page. So we took a picture of him reading a dog book. Stanley is part of our class meetings and anything to do with self esteem.
This went so well, I thought I'd introduce another class bear. In came Benny Bear, and Benny brings us treats for our graphing jar and fun math manipulatives. I'm not sure why I called him Benny, but I'd like to think an intuitive part of me thought of Benevolent. :)And lastly, I fell in love with this beauitful girl doll that a friend gave me for Christmas. She reminded me of Elf on a shelf, and I named her Ellie. Ellie came into the classroom when we were having a lot of trouble with our self-control. She would whisper to me which kids were working so hard on self-control, and they got to write their names in a self control bubble.
The best part about these class pets are they don't require cages or clean ups or any kind of smells!
I hope you enjoy this idea. If you have your own ideas, I'd love to see how you this in your classroom. Together, I think we will really have some great tools in the classroom for management.
