Francine C. Coss
This unit will be implemented through various classroom lessons, hands-on experiences, field trips, guest speakers and technology. The students will be assessed following each main concept or activity through small projects, oral presentations and/or technology-based review.
Pet Store
As an introduction to the Pet Store field trip, the initial classroom lessons will revolve around the big-book, I Can't Get my Turtle to Move. The pet in the book, a turtle, will be discussed and a listing of pets owned by the students will be created. Common pets and exotic pets will be defined. The children will be encouraged to draw their pet or a picture of a pet they wish they had and re-tell the story replacing the turtle in the story with their pet type.
In the lessons that follow, the children will re-read the big-book and highlight the 'environment' or 'home' depicted in the book's illustrations. A comparison will be made to the 'home' their personal pets need and the children will have the opportunity to add illustrations to their original pet drawing. A re-telling of 'I Can't Get my (pet) to Move' will occur using only the children's illustrations, compiling a booklet about each child's pet that mimics the text of the original big-book.
Further discussion of pet homes and environmental requirements will follow as chicken eggs are maintained and, eventually, hatched in the classroom. Once the chicks have hatched, the children will make an informed decision regarding the best home for the chicks: the classroom or the farm from which the eggs were taken. The understanding of pet health as it pertains to environment will be determined by the class' overall decision.
Either as a follow-up to the decision to return the chicks to the farm or as a precursor to the decision-making process for the best environment for the chicks (whichever applies), the students will visit the chicken farm from which the eggs were obtained. A juxtaposition of the classroom environment to the farm environment will either reinforce their decision or assist in the decision-making process for the chicks final home.
A class-made big-book will be composed for the chicks entitled, "I Can't Get my Chick to Move." The chosen environment for the newly hatched chicks will be depicted in the illustrations, allowing for closure before completing the chick project. The child-made illustrations will be scanned into a word processing program and printed in color on large sheets of oaktag. The phrases, altered for the chicks from the original big-book, will be printed on each appropriate illustration. "I Can't Get my Chick to Move" and the original book, I Can't Get my Turtle to Move, will be placed in the Listening Library for re-reading by one or more children. In addition, an audio cassette will be recorded for each book.
The final series of lessons involving pets and their homes will revolve around the book, Charlie Anderson which tells of a cat with two homes. The many hours Charlie is permitted to roam the neighborhood will be highlighted, leading into the discussion of pet care. Referring to the children's pet list from earlier lessons and their pet booklets, each child will complete a 'show and tell' project describing their pet, it's environment and it's care. Children not owning pets will select a 'favorite pet' for research and also make a presentation. Information from the presentations will be gathered and 'published' in a class-made "Pet Reference Guide," as well as videotaped for future viewing in the classroom.
A trip to a local pet store will conclude the introduction to pets. During the pet store trip, the children will be given clipboards with pet names and pictures from the familiar, class-made "Pet Reference Guide." Pairs of children will use their clipboard resources in conjunction with the pet store's resources to add details to the pet list. Details from the clipboards will then be added to the "Pet Reference Guide" following the field trip.
Digital photographs of each type of pet found in the pet store will be recorded through the use of an Apple QuickTake 150 digital camera. Color printouts of each digitally photographed pet will be added to the "Pet Reference Guide" along with the information gathered by the students.
HyperStudio Project
The computer program HyperStudio will be utilized for a class project about pets and pet care. Each page of the classroom published reference guide of pets will be scanned and a stack will be created with sound and video images. Images and text from the "I Can't Get my (pet) to Move" booklets as well as the "I Can't Get my Chick to Move" big-book will be recorded. Links to stacks from the pet store trip, the videotaped presentations about individual pets, and the recorded progress of the hatching/hatched chicks will also be included. The children will audio-record the text in the stack to enable those students who cannot read to access the pet information in the stack. Links will also be made to other mammals, birds, fish or reptiles for additional research and the stack will continue to grow as the pet reproduction unit unfolds.
Animal Shelter
An expansion of the pet presentations will require information on the origin of their pet(s): Were they simply found, were they purchased from a pet store, a friend or an animal shelter? This new list will open the discussion of the best place to purchase/acquire a pet. The likelihood of acquiring a healthy pet from each place of origin will be discussed and a determination of what a healthy pet should look like will be made.
Pet reproduction will become the topic of discussion following a class trip to the New Haven Animal Shelter. The plight of homeless pets due to the irresponsible actions of pet owners will be highlighted during the animal shelter visit with information provided by the Animal Control Officer. Care for the animals at the shelter will be covered and video will be taken of the homeless pets in their pens. Death as an option for lack of adoption will be defined as the children count the available pens and the occupied pens and the expense of caring for too many unwanted animals.
Following the animal shelter trip, the students will be asked to determine a means by which the public can be informed of these homeless pets and possibly adopt some of them before they are put down. The class will discuss the methods of communication used today and how we get news. Newspapers, signs/billboards, and television/radio news programs will all be included in the discussion. Strategies for informing the public through newspaper, billboard, radio and TV will be determined and utilized.
Posters will be made with pet facts for display in and around the school, a letter to the editor(s) of the local newspaper(s) will be drafted and delivered, and two PSAs will be recorded for radio and television.
Cable Television Local Access Studio
Two public service announcements (PSAs) will be videotaped at the Citizens Television Studio asking 'humans' to adopt the homeless pets and to care for the ones they already have. Videotape recorded during our trip to the animal shelter will be used for the first PSA. The information collected previously in the classroom for determining the best place to purchase/acquire a pet will be tapped for dialog in this PSA.
A take off on 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' will be composed in the classroom and will become the main storyline for the second PSA, adding an easy-to-remember rhyme to better promote animal care. Words like those below will reflect the needs/problems of each pet in the PSA.
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Tiarra had a little pup,
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Little pup, little pup.
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Tiarra had a little pup,
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Its coat was dull and gray.
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And everywhere that Tiarra went,
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Tiarra went, Tiarra went.
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Everywhere that Tiarra went,
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The pup would scratch its fleas.
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It followed her to school one day,
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School one day, school one day.
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It followed her to school one day,
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And got sick on the way.
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Tiarra had a little pup,
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Little pup, little pup.
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Tiarra had a little pup,
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Until is passed away.
Following the strong words in the 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' style rhymes, health and prevention information will be provided to assist all would-be or current pet owners on the ignorance of Tiarra and those like her. "Having a pet means having a long list of responsibilities as an owner, " will resemble one of the lines of dialog in the PSA. Only the children's comprehension of pet care and pet health will determine the strength of the PSA's message.
A flyer describing the needs of the animals available at the shelter will be written and/or dictated by the children and distributed to all interested parties using the facts found in the Pet Reference Guide and the HyperStudio stack.
The two PSA's will be added to the HyperStudio Pet Reference Guide stack as video buttons for future viewing in the classroom.
Animal Hospital
Preventing pet overpopulation will be the focus following the shelter trip and an additional PSA. The discussion of pet population will begin in the classroom following the placement of two guinea pigs (one male/one female) in the classroom.
The actions of the two guinea pigs before and (with any luck) after conception and delivery of their young will be recorded daily in a similar fashion to that used for the hatching chicks.
Overpopulation will become the classroom topic following a revised version of Pigs is Pigs. Methods of contraception, including the separation of male and female (abstinence) will be researched and added to the pet list, Pet Reference Guide and the HyperStudio reference stack.
A review of pet care and pet health will occur during a planned visit to the New Haven Central Hospital for Veterinary Medicine. The children will have the opportunity to witness the spaying or neutering a pet during our tour which will reinforce the ease of completing such a procedure on a pet. Pet owner responsibility will be revisited as a topic.
Pros and cons of spaying/neutering will be addressed at length and will be mentioned in an additional PSA also to be produced at Citizens Television as well as linked to the original Pet Reference HyperStudio stack.