How to Keep a Class Pet

Hey, here's another update from my fourth year of teaching in Honduras!

Well, if you remember some of my earlier blog posts, you'll recall the memorable class pets we had over the years. Well in September last year, a staff member showed up at my classroom door. I tried to finish my lesson before going to talk to her, but she motioned me over quickly and said, "You need to talk to this student. He's got something to show you... and it's squirming." Of course I was intrigued, so I went out and found a fourth grade student outside my door with a wriggling lizard in his hands. He had found it basking on the concrete wall of the soccer field and decided to catch it and, naturally, donate it to me. I brought it into my class, found a small cage that had previously housed spiders, and welcomed it into my classroom.

Lizards, as you know, are cold-blooded, and I had learned from previous experience that a small lizard would not survive in our breezy building (rest in peace, Oreo!) So I commented to my class that I didn't think our new scaly classmate would be able to stay since we didn't have a warm enough environment.

Two days later, we still had the lizard, but I was planning to release him soon. I got a note that requested I come to the office to pick something up. Confused, I stopped by the office and found a glass terrarium and reptile habitat that had been donated by the mother of a student in my class. I took it back to the classroom and set it up. It came complete with a plug-in heated rock and fake but realistic branch for our reptilian friend's climbing enjoyment.

So we had a permanent member of our classroom who had his own habitat. We naturally needed to determine what his name would be. We took nominations from the class and voted to find a good name. Some of the suggestions were Bob, Henry, Sprinkles, and other classic fifth-grade go-to names. One student suggested the name Leafy, but I misheard, thinking the student said "wifi" pronounced "wee-fee" as some Spanish speakers tend to do. I wrote Wifi on the board, and after being corrected and adding Leafy to the list, I decided I should keep Wifi up there just for fun. Well, you can just guess the vote results, and pretty soon, Wifi (pronounced "wye-fye") was a member of the class.

Wifi enjoyed his cage and his place in our class, occasionally being picked up by me or the students. We fed him crickets and grasshoppers from the recess field and he stayed pretty happy. Later in the year, we found two more lizards and added them to the habitat, although Wifi really liked being by himself. (It is worth noting that after two months of cohabitation, I released the two newer lizards to give Wifi his solitude, and I discovered some tiny lizards hiding under the woodchips that I definitely didn't put in there... you draw the conclusions on that one...)

Wifi remained healthy throughout the whole school year, securing the record for my longest-lasting class pet of all my years of teaching. He did not meet the same demise as previous scaly companions (awww, Oreo! Too soon...), and I was able to have a final farewell for our fond friend as I cleaned out 5B for the last time. I'm sure there's some sort of sentimental metaphor I could make for the lizard and my years as a teacher... something about scales... or cold-blooded...