In the years that I have been teaching Kindergarten, I have learned that the topic of pets normally creates quite a commotion and I always regret bringing it up. Unfortunately, our religion curriculum includes a piece on "thanking God for our pets," so it is unavoidable. This year, as expected, the minute I breached the topic, I had just about the whole class raising their hands (and those who weren't raising their hands were just shouting out). You have those kids who don't have a pet and have the saddest look on their face, those kids who have too many pets and need to share every bit of information about them, and those kids whose pets have died in all ways imaginable. It's amazing, really, how many 5-year-olds have already experienced the death of a pet (or have just concocted a story about it). One story this year really caught me off-guard. I have a set of twins in my class, and one of them shared with the class that their dog had died when it was only 3 years old. His brother then told us that this wasn't true, he just had to be sent off to doggy school. Hmmm.... Is this a case where the dog died, and the parents sheltered the kids by telling them that the dog had just gone to live somewhere else? Or, is it just the opposite: the family couldn't handle the dog, so they just told the kids that the dog had died so that there was no chance of them ever asking to get it back? Not sure how to respond, I paused, and was luckily saved by the second twin who stated "We love him no matter where he lives!"
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