Day 52 Fourth Grade Flipper

 I spend most of my time in the primary world...but lately I've been in search of other grade levels who teach those kids taller than me.  This pretty much covers 3rd grade and above (tall has never been an adjective used to reference me!)

This wonderful teacher teaches in a rural district in New York...yes, there's more to New York than 'The Big Apple'.   I teach 1st grade, but I find great ideas from any all levels of teaching.  4th grade was where I did half my student teaching (kinder was the other half--yes, night and day difference there).

I actually found a great resource for fluency on her blog that I shared with my school's reading coach and she in turn shared it with all the 3-6th grade teachers in the district and they went gaga over it.  So thank you Flipper!

I was looking at her list of blog topics in the right column and I saw a link for Class Pet.  I clicked on it and expected to see a rat or a guinea pig...or some other animal that would be sure to gross me out, smell really bad or make my eyes swell shut!  (Nope...I'm not describing 4th graders at least not until May when it gets warm in the classrooms and they come in from gym or recess!)

This is her class pet....

This is the coolest thing ever!  You don't have to worry about the kids killing it when they take it home over a weekend.  No food to buy, no smell and no mess to clean up.  It's perfect!  She sends it home with a journal for the kids to write about their adventures with the class pet.  This is such a great idea I think I will use it next year in my 1st grade classroom.  Thank you Flipper!